M Nazeem A Choudhury, head of consumer banking at Eastern Bank, and Sohail Majid, head of sales and marketing at Novoair, sign an agreement at a programme in Dhaka recently. The bank's cardholders can now buy Novoair's holiday package for Cox's Bazar without any interest through a six month instalment plan.

Eastern Bank has teamed up with Novoair to offer the bank's cardholders a holiday package for Cox's Bazar with a flexible payment plan, the bank said in a statement yesterday.

EBL cardholders can now pay for the airline's holiday package in up to six monthly instalments, under the bank's zero instalment programme.

Travellers who make a two-way trip from Dhaka to Cox's Bazar by Novoair will enjoy free return tickets and accommodation in any of the hotels like Sayeman Beach Resort, Ocean Paradise, Seagull, Long Beach and Praasad Paradise, it said. 

The offer will remain valid until June 30.

M Nazeem A Chowdhury, head of Eastern Bank's consumer banking, and Sohail Majid, head of sales and marketing of Novoair, signed an agreement in Dhaka recently. 

A file photo shows a man using ATM at a booth in Dhaka. Bangladesh Bank is going to put a cap on annual fee of debit cards offered by scheduled banks as some of them impose excess charge on their clients for using the product.

Bangladesh Bank is going to put a cap on annual fee of debit cards offered by scheduled banks as some of them impose excess charge on their clients for using the product. A BB official told New Age on Tuesday that the central bank was likely to impose annual charge between Tk 300 and Tk 400 for all types of debit cards of the banks in a bid to popularise more the online-based transaction. The banks are now imposing annual charge on the debit cards between Tk 300 and Tk 2,000 which is impeding to expedite the card-based transaction through automated teller machine and point-on-sale, he said. The central bank will also take an initiative to allow the clients to enjoy the debit card service without any annual fee if they make a certain amount of transaction through their cards, he said. Besides, the BB will impose caps on card and PIN replacement fees for the banks as the charges are also high considering the existing rate, the official said. The central bank, however, is yet to set the limit, but the decision will be taken in the quickest possible time, he said. The BB will raise the issue at a bankers’ meeting which will be held on March 19 at the central bank headquarters in the capital. After the meeting, the central bank will make a final decision in this connection and issue a circular to all banks, the BB official said. 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, according to the latest BB data. The clients will encourage more to make their transaction through the debit cards if the banks reduce their fee on the cards, the official said. Such type of transaction will also reduce the use of printed currency note and coin, he said. ‘The central bank will also impose a cap on annual fee of credit cards after making a decision about debit cards’, the official said.

Chairman, Board of Directors of Mercantile Bank Ltd Morshed Alam, MP, its Managing Director & CEO M Ehsanul Haque and Managing Director & CEO of NEC Money, Spain Ikram Farazy seen in the signing ceremony held between the two companies.

Mercantile Bank Limited has recently signed an agreement with NEC Money, Spain, one of the most reputed money transfer companies in Europe.

An agreement has been signed in this regard between NEC Money, Spain and Mercantile Bank Limited, according to a statement.

NEC Money operates remittance business in Spain covering whole Europe where a large number of Bangladeshi expatriates have been living and working around. With this agreement, new window has been opened for the Bangladeshi expatriates from different countries in Europe to remit their hard-earned money to their relatives and family members in Bangladesh safely, quickly and conveniently through any branch of Mercantile Bank Limited.

M Ehsanul Haque, Managing Director & CEO of Mercantile Bank Limited and Ikram Farazy, Managing Director & CEO of NEC Money, Spain signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organizations.

Morshed Alam, MP, Chairman, Board of Directors of Mercantile Bank Ltd. was present at the event as chief guest and Alhaj Akram Hossain (Humayun), Chairman, Executive Committee of the Bank was present as special guest.  Besides, Mr. A. S. M. Feroz Alam, Vice Chairman, Board of Directors, Mr. Md. Abdul Jalil Chowdhury, AMD, Mr. Md. Quamrul Islam Chowdhury, Mr. Mohammad Masoom & Mr. Matiul Hasan, DMDs of Mercantile Bank Ltd. and Mr. Mohammad Babul Miah, director of NEC Money along with other high officials from both the organisations were also present on the occasion.

Head of Marketing & Development Division of First Security Islami Bank Limited (FSIBL) Azam Khan and CEO & Founder of Social Business Youth Alliance-Global Shazeeb M Khairul Islam exchanging documents after signing an MoU on behalf of their respective organisations in the city recently. According to the deal, FSIBL becomes official sponsor of Social Business Champ-2015. The competition aims to raising awareness about social business among Bangladeshi Youth.

The country's banking sector is stable and capable of tackling any risk, according to a Bangladesh Bank document, which attributes strong capital adequacy and sufficient liquidity to the banks' strength, reports BSS. Constant internal and external monitoring, upgrading loan classification and provisioning to the global standard and ensuring good governance in the board of directors have also contribute to the higher resilience and the strength of the banking sector, the document said.
According to the BB, the risk-weighted capital adequacy ratio, which is one of the major indicators of the banks' health, stood at 11.35 per cent at the end of December when the amount of reserve capital in banking sector rose to Taka 71 thousand 754 crore. 
"The higher capital adequacy ratio and reserve capital boosted the bank's resilience to risks," BB said.
It said the loan classification and provisioning also upgraded to the international standard, with limiting the time for loan classification and making minimum capital requirement (MCR) mandatory for all banks.
The central bank said the profit before tax and provisioning in the banking sector also rose to Taka 21 thousand 265 crore in 2014 from the previous year's Taka 18 thousand 610 crore.
The document showed that liquidity in banks was Taka 3 thousand 364 crore, which was usual for the country's banking sector, having 56 banks in operations.
"The adequate liquidity helps maintain stability in the call money market where the interest rate remains around 7.0 percent for long," BB said.
The credit growth also marked 13.99 percent rise in 2014 when banks disbursed Taka 5 lakh 28 thousand 755 crore compared to Taka 4 lakh 63 thousand 871 crore only to the individual borrowers, indicating dynamism of economy.
BB said the banks also disbursed loans to export oriented industries from the Export Development Fund (EDF) at only 2.0 percent rate of interest to help accelerate the country's export earnings.