ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to describe the nature of the external environment of FUB and the changes to that environment over the period from 1997 to 2017. Additionally, in order to capture a better understanding of the changes that took place during the period 1997–2017 and the factors that led to those changes, the period from 1995 to 1997 was also examined. The analytical framework of the research, presented in Chapter 3 (see Figure 3.1), will be used to describe and analyse the changes in the bank’s external environment. Specifically, the discussion will focus on the three categories of the bank’s external environment (political and economic, technological, and socio-cultural) included in the framework. Various documents were reviewed in order to explore the external environment of FUB for the period 1997–2017. The documents reviewed included: (i) annual reports of the State Bank of Pakistan; (ii) speeches of the governors of the central bank; (iii) annual reports of the IMF and World Bank; (iv) the Economic Surveys of Pakistan; and (v) articles published in newspapers and journals concerning Pakistan’s banking sector. Additionally, participants’ responses to the interview questions were also used to explore and examine changes in FUB’s external environment.
