Name: Mohammad Aijaz
Home Town: Aagra Taj Colony, Karachi
Business: Bangle Shop
Loan: Rs 35,000

Mohammad Aijaz has a Bangle shop in Aagra Taj Colony. All the goods come from Hyderabad. He has been in this business for about 7 years now and handles all the work himself. It is only during the festive season of Ramazan followed by the two Eids, that he employs a temporary work force. This consists of at least 8 persons. 4 salesmen to tackle the Eid rush and 4 errand boys to do the running around. All these young men are from the neighborhood who work at his shop after college/school hours. That his shop does very good business during these periods is evident from the Rs.5-6 thousand per month salary he pays to each salesperson and Rs.5-6 hundred to each tea/errand boy. These amounts are in addition to the monies spent on their meals and transportation cost for the errands they do for his business.

Mohammad Aijaz applied for a loan from Tameer as he wants to open a second shop from where he plans to sell only costume jewelry. His loan of Rs.35,000 was sanctioned without a hitch. This was a very pleasant experience for him because the loan process took such little time. However, as the sanctioned amount is not enough to cover the investment of the second shop, Mohammad Aijaz feels Tameer should give larger loan amounts so that small businessmen like him do not have to go to other banks to cover the rest of the costs.

To a question as to why he did not have a deposit account at Tameer, Mohammad Aijaz said his business is cash based. At the end of the day, all payments are received and made in cash. If there was an ATM at Tameer he would certainly consider opening an account.