Dhaka: ONE Bank Limited (OBL) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Fair Distribution Limited, reports in press release.
M. Fakhrul Alam, Managing Director of ONE Bank Limited and Md. Ruhul Alam Al Mahbub, Managing Director, Fair Distribution Limited signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organizations.
Under this MoU, OBL Credit Cardholders will enjoy interest free flexible installments for a period of 3 months to 12 months while purchasing Samsung Smartphone and tablet from Samsung Smartphone Café and Samsung outlets under “Smart EMI” plan, an interest free payment proposition for OBL Credit Cardholders.
Gazi Yar Mohammed, Head of Retail Banking of ONE Bank Limited and Md Abdur Rouf, Chief Financial Officer of Fair Distribution Limited along with other high officials of both the organizations were also present in the ceremony. One Bank Vision is to establish ONE Bank Limited as a Role Model in the Banking Sector of Bangladesh, to meet the needs of our Customers, Provide fulfillment for our People and create Shareholder Value.
One Bank Mission is to constantly seek ways to better serve our Customers, to be pro-active in fulfilling our Social Responsibilities, to review all business lines regularly and develop the Best Practices in the industry, working environment to be supportive of Teamwork, enabling the Employees to perform to the very best of their abilities.

Business Desk
Shaheen Mahmud, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Jamuna Bank Limited is presiding over the 265th Board meeting. Al-Haj Nur Mohammed, Chairman, Jamuna Bank Foundation, Md. Rafiqul Islam, Chairman, Audit Committee, other directors of the bank, Managing Director Shafiqul Alam and AMD Mosleh Uddin Ahmed were present in the meeting, reports in a press release. The Board reviewed at length the overall operational aspects of the bank and took some pragmatic steps for their expansion and more improvement. Jamuna Bank Limited (JBL) is a Banking Company registered under the Companies Act, 1994 of Bangladesh with its Head Office currently at Chini Shilpa Bhaban, 3, Dilkusha C/A, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh. The Bank started its operation from 3rd June 2001, reports in a press release.
The Bank provides all types of support to trade, commerce, industry and overall business of the country. JBL’s finances are also available for the entrepreneurs to set up promising new ventures and BMRE of existing industrial units. Jamuna Bank Ltd., the only Bengali named 3rd generation private commercial bank, was established by a group of local entrepreneurs who are well reputed in the field of trade, commerce, industry and business of the country.
The Bank offers both conventional and Islamic banking through designated branches. The Bank is being managed and operated by a group of highly educated and professional team with diversified experience in finance and banking. The Management of the bank constantly focuses on understanding and anticipating customers’ needs. Since the need of customers is changing day by day with the changes of time, the bank endeavors its best to device strategies and introduce new products to cope with the change. Jamuna Bank Ltd. has already achieved tremendous progress within its past 10 years of operation. The bank has already built up reputation as one of quality service providers of the country.
At present the Bank has real-time Online banking branches (of both Urban and Rural areas) network throughout the country having smart IT-backbone. Besides traditional delivery points, the bank has ATMs of its own, sharing with other partner banks and consortium throughout the country.
The operation hour of the Bank is 10:00 A.M. To 6:00 P.M. from Sunday to Thursday with transaction hour from 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. The Bank remains closed on Friday, Saturday and government holidays.

Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha . Dhaka

The banking sector has strongly been advised again to increase their credit flow to support small and medium enterprises, or SMEs, and women entrepreneurs, which have long been seen vital to economic growth. Inaugurating a workshop on ‘The Role of the Policy Makers and Central Banks in Promoting SMEs’ Access to Finance — The Case of Bangladesh’ in the capital city, Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman said banks should be more enthusiastic in promoting SMEs and women entrepreneurship. Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management in association with European Union and Bangladesh Inspired Project of Ministry of Industries organised the workshop at BIBM in Dhaka. BIBM director general Taufiq Ahmed Chowdhury chaired the inaugural session. ‘We (bankers) offer lot of things to bigger entrepreneurs. Let’s do something for small ones’, the governor said. He suggested providing SMEs and women entrepreneurs both financial and advisory assistance to ensure better use of loan and its timely recovery. Atiur said the present government had rightly identified SMEs as the priority sector for transforming Bangladesh into a middle-income country by 2021. In line with the government’s thrust, he said BB had been instrumental in designing and implementing SME sector development initiatives as part of its development financing agenda, with broadening financial access to cottage, micro and small enterprises and in particular women entrepreneurs. He said the BB had already become the role model in SME financing in the international arena within a span of only five years. Its initiatives are being studied by other central banks of the world, Atiur added. The governor said a number of soft credit schemes are available through BB for financial institutions for lending to SMEs at a capped interest rate. For women entrepreneurs, he said, policy intervention including earmarking of 15 per cent low-cost fund for women entrepreneurs, clean lending limits up to 25 lakh, priority in loan processing, engagement of women business chambers and associations in client sourcing, mentoring and capacity building support are being encouraged. The governor, however, said that there was still a long way to go before financial inclusion could be characterised as fully satisfactory. ‘In many cases, SME lending by banks is not profitable due to the lack of appropriate processes and low technological level. If the lending is not profitable, the banks will not proactively increase portfolio in the micro and small and medium entrepreneurs segment’, Atiur said. The governor suggested that banks should revisit their MSME banking model to identify pitfalls and undertake business process reengineering to make MSME banking profitable, less risky, and more consumers’ friendly.

News:New Age/12-Apr-2015

BB takes the move to tighten security

A client uses ATM of a private commercial bank in Dhaka last week. Bangladesh Bank is going to replace existing four-digit security PIN code used to settle transactions through automated teller machines with fingerprint with a target to strengthen financial security

Bangladesh Bank is going to replace existing four-digit security PIN code used to settle transactions through automated teller machines with fingerprint with a target to strengthen financial security. A BB official told New Age on Wednesday that the central bank had taken the initiative to strengthen financial security as well as to popularise the country’s card-based payment system among the rural people. Such type of security measures is globally known as biometric solution and a number of developed countries have already introduced the system, he said. The biometric solution will also decrease the existing fraudulent acts through hacking the passwords, the official said. The BB issued a letter to managing directors and chief executive officers of all banks on February 18, 2015 asking them to send their opinion regarding the fingerprint introduction. The banks in their replies said that they would require one or two years to introduce the system as they would have to prepare fingerprint database of the clients and set up scanners at ATM booths. Besides, the banks will have to appoint vendor to set up the biometric solution, according to the banks’ letter. The BB will issue another letter to the banks shortly to take preparation in this regard, the official said. When a customer inserts or swipes his or her card in a biometric-enabled ATM, he or she is prompted to set his finger in the fingerprint scanner. The fingerprints of the clients are scanned into a special computer with the ATM booths after which the scanned fingerprints are stored in a central server of the banks. A transaction along with a customer’s biometric information is passed on to the switch, which verifies the fingerprint with the server, and if successful, requests the banking application to authorise the transaction. Based on the result, the switch instructs the ATM to complete the transaction. According to the central bank data, the banks issued 72,85,805 debit cards and 5,77,864 credit cards and 1,02,787 prepaid cards as of September 30, 2014 while they set up 6,035 ATM booths and 26,140 POS terminals. The BB official said that the marginal people of the rural area were now reluctant to use the ATMs due to their incapability of using the PIN code accurately. The central bank has recently taken a number initiative to popularise the country’s card-based transaction through the ATMs and POS machines. As part of the move, the BB is going to give permission the private companies to set up ATM booth in rural areas and to put a cap on annual fee of debit cards offered by the banks. The card-based payment system will get tempo when the marginal people of the rural areas will not be required to use PIN code, the BB official said.

The global lender cuts growth projection to 5.6pc from 6.6pc

World Bank country director for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal Johannes Zutt speaks at a briefing in Dhaka on Sunday while presenting Bangladesh Development Update-2015. WB lead economist Zahid Hussain is also seen.

The country lost one per cent or Tk 17,150 crore of its gross domestic product due to the political unrest and violence during January to mid-March that dampened the economic growth potential in the current fiscal year, the World Bank said in its report Bangladesh Development Update-2015 published on Sunday. The World Bank also downsized the country’s economic growth projection to 5.6 per cent for the current fiscal year due to the impact of political turmoil from that of 6.1 per cent in last year. ‘Direct production losses inflicted by the turmoil could be around one per cent of the GDP or $2.2 billion (Tk 17,150 crore),’ the report said. Bangladesh’s economic growth could have been 6.6 per cent in absence of such turmoil, it said adding that political turmoil in particular was taking a heavy toll on the economy. The World Bank revealed the findings at a press briefing held at its Dhaka office on the day. The WB also said that the GDP growth might recover to 6.3 per cent in the next fiscal year and 6.7 per cent in the FY17 on political stability coupled with sound fiscal and monetary management. ‘Economic losses this time are likely to be more severe than earlier period of turmoil in 2013 because of the timing, duration and the depth of uncertainty,’ WB lead economist Zahid Hussain said at the briefing. Earlier, the WB estimated that Bangladesh suffered a financial loss of around Tk 11,000 crore due to the 2013 political unrest centring national elections. Zahid said that this year the intensity of violence was severe as violence occurred in dry season, a season for construction works, tourism, retail sales and peak time for production. He said that the services sector including trade and transport sub-sectors were affected most followed by the manufacturing sector and agriculture due to the political unrest. Of the Tk 17,150 crore economic losses, the services sector incurred the highest 68 per cent or Tk 11,662 crore loss while the agriculture sector lost the lowest 7 per cent or Tk 1,200 crore, according to WB estimation. The manufacturing sector suffered an economic loss of Tk 4,288 crore or 25 per cent during the unrest, Zahid said. Earlier on April 5, country’s leading independent think-tank Centre for Policy Dialogue said that the country lost 0.55 per cent or Tk 4,900 crore of the gross domestic product due to the recent political unrest. ‘Bangladesh economy is moving forward with resilient growth and macroeconomic stability despite political turmoil, structural constraints and global volatility,’ the WB said. According to the WB report, continued polarisation between the government and the opposition alliance is the main source of uncertainty in the country. The country will need to restore political stability and implement faster structural reforms to capitalise the projected recovery in global growth particularly in the United States and the eurozone, and continued softness in the international commodity prices. It, however, said that political instability was not the only challenge for the country for economic growth at higher rate. Bangladesh needs to increase investment by at least 5 percentage points to the GDP from the current 28.7 per cent and improve the female labour force participation rate from the existing 33.7 per cent to get out of the 6 per cent growth trap, it said. ‘Economy will experience 1.8 per cent additional growth a year if Bangladesh can increase female labour force participation to 82 per cent, equivalent to male labour force participation in the next 10 years,’ Zahid said. The reasons for the trap are stagnation in productivity growth and female labour force participation in formal economic activities, it said. This requires faster progress on easing barriers to women’s participation in economic activities, establishing special economic zones, adequate attention to the private sector regulatory environment, better functioning of land markets to ensure the availability of land for manufacturing enterprises and addressing the transport problem for ensuring growth. Zahid said that the economic losses due to the political stalemate might not be reflected at the end of the year due to limitations in the GDP calculation methods used by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. The methods used by the BBS, like most other developing countries, to estimate production and expenditures work well in a normal year but fail to capture the impact of disruptions in an abnormal year, he said. In reply to a question regarding the probable size of the next national budget, he said that the budget at Tk 3 lakh crore might be an ambitious one but it could not create any problem in management as the government usually revised the major projections including the annual development programme and revenue mobilisation. WB country director for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal Johannes Zutt spoke, among others, at the briefing.