Mr Agha Hasan Abedi, who was the founding President of BCCI from 1972, shared his thoughts over the years on various topics in different situations. Here are some of his published conversations, addresses, and interviews.
It is well known that Mr Abedi was the driving force behind the BCC’s astonishing global expansion in 73 countries in around 16 years. The West were reluctant to acknowledge such an achievement, particularly by an unknown banker from the Third World. To the West he was an enigma and his motives were misinterpreted and harshly judged by the media.
The selection of Mr Abedi’s conversations, addresses and interviews as President of BCC in this section would give an insight into his true motivations in setting up BCCI with its global presence, his interaction with employees, his drive for business development, his contacts in high places, his determination for the upliftment of Third World countries that included providing financial assistance to establish the Third World Foundation with award of annual prizes, and his deeply philanthropic nature that included charitable giving through BCC employees and setting up BCCI charitable foundations as well as supporting other charitable projects.
Mr Agha Hasan Abedi started his banking career in 1946 at Habib Bank after he graduated from Lucknow University in British India. Following the partition of India in 1947, he moved to newly independent Pakistan continuing to work for Habib Bank.
In 1959 Mr Abedi founded United Bank Ltd and under his leadership, it became the second largest bank in Pakistan. When all private banks in Pakistan were nationalised in 1972 after the break-away of East Pakistan which became Bangladesh, he moved on and set up Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).
Mr Abedi had a massive heart attack in 1988 that left Mr Abedi partially paralysed and he underwent a heart transplant operation in London. He never recovered his health fully and died on 5 August 1995 of a cardiac arrest in the Agha Khan University Hospital in Karachi, Pakistan.