Bangladesh Bank on Monday asked four state-owned commercial banks to explain in their annual financial balance sheets why their position of capital and provision strengthened last year. The four banks are Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali. The BB asked the banks to prepare the balance sheets by this month as they failed to do those by February in line with the central bank directions. Monday’s directions came from a regular memorandum of understanding meeting between the BB and the state-owned banks at the central bank headquarters in the capital. BB governor Atiur Rahman presided over the meeting while the managing directors of the banks were present. The BB arranges the MoU meeting in every three months to supervise and monitor the banks’ financial health. BB deputy governor SK Sur Chowdhury after the meeting told reporters that the capital and provision of the banks strengthened last year as the central bank had relaxed provisioning against the loans which are pending with the Artha Rin Adalat. The central bank has recently asked the banks to keep provision in phases against the loans which are pending with the court that resulted in stronger capital position of the banks. The BB asked the banks to attach the information with the balance sheets. Sur said that the central bank had asked the four banks to strengthen the recovery programmes from the habitual and big defaulters as some of them (banks) failed to achieve the recovery of the defaulted loans in accordance with the central bank target. He said, ‘Rupali Bank exceeded the credit growth target set by the central bank in 2014. So, the BB asked the bank to give explanation in this connection.’ The central bank set the credit growth target for the four banks from 2013 in a bid to check their loan scandal. The BB asked the banks to strengthen their internal control and compliance in the interest of their good governance, Sur said. The BB asked the banks to take punitive measures against the officials who were responsible for the loan scandals.