HSBC published a full-page letter in British newspapers on Sunday to offer its "sincerest apologies" for past practices at its Swiss private bank, which has been accused of helping clients to evade tax.

Europe's biggest bank admitted failings in compliance and controls in its Swiss operation after media reports that said it had helped wealthy customers to conceal millions of dollars of assets up to 2007.

Britain's Treasury Committee has called the bank's chairman and chief executive to give evidence on the matter on Feb. 25, according to a memo seen by Reuters on Friday.

The bank's letter published in a number of newspapers on Sunday was signed by Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver and said that the reports had been a "painful experience" for its customers, shareholders and employees.

"We must show we understand that the societies we serve expect more from us," Gulliver wrote. "We therefore offer our sincerest apologies."

The bank said that the vast majority of the 140 people named in reports as customers of its Swiss bank had left and that it has since established much tighter controls on who it accepts as customers.

"We have absolutely no appetite to do business with clients who are evading their taxes or who fail to meet our financial crime compliance standards," he said.

The fallout from the claims caused the bank's former boss Stephen Green to step down at financial services lobby group TheCityUK on Saturday.

Its default loans rose in every quarter of 2014                                            

Despite various efforts, including wholesale management changes and rescheduling, default loans at scam-hit BASIC Bank rose in every quarter of 2014.

“The bank is still suffering from the after-effects of serious scams,” said a senior official of the finance ministry's banking division.

The new board, which took over in July last year, has taken various initiatives to bring down the default loans. “But it won't come down overnight -- it will be a long and painful process.”

In the last quarter, default loans crept up 3.83 percent, but the increment was way less than in the preceding three quarters, when it rose 99 percent, 79 percent and 34 percent successively.

On December 31, 2014, the state-run commercial bank had bad loans of Tk 6,384 crore, which was 53.48 percent of its total loan portfolio -- the highest in the banking sector in terms of proportion. Its operating loss for 2014 stood at Tk 50 crore.

Meanwhile, a BASIC board member said the new management has aggressively moved to realise the classified loans from the bank's top 100 defaulters, who account for 86 percent of the total bad loans, as well as restore consumer confidence in the bank.

They managed cash recovery of Tk 126 crore against the default loans and another Tk 9.51 crore from writing off bad loans.

Just three of BASIC's 68 branches -- Gulshan, Shantinagar and Dilkusha -- account for 80 percent of the classified loans and the recovery there remains woeful.

Gulshan branch had Tk 2,395 crore of default loans -- which is 73 percent of its total loan portfolio -- of which only Tk 26 crore was recovered last year.

Shantinagar branch's 64 percent of the loans were defaults; it managed to recover only Tk 8 crore of Tk 1,763 crore bad loans.

Dilkusha branch's defaults stood at Tk 905 crore, which is 60 percent of its total loans. It realised around Tk 41 crore.

However, after the new management took over, deposits, a pillar of the banking business, grew 6.41 percent.

Every official of its 68 branches has been given an individual target for deposit collection, said a senior official of BASIC Bank.

Historically a well-run bank, BASIC Bank's woes started when the Awami League government came to power in 2009 and appointed Sheikh Abdul Hye Bacchu as its chairman.

Under his influence, the bank indulged in all sorts of irregularities, which come to the fore in 2012 after a central bank investigation. Subsequently, the chief executive was removed and the board dissolved.

Bangladesh Bank (BB) has eased the procedures of offering banking services to the street children, with lifting the condition of mandatory permission from BB by the non-government organisations (NGOs), reports BSS.
The central bank in a directive yesterday said interested NGOs now can apply to any scheduled bank for offering the services to the street children.

On receiving application, the bank will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the concerned NGO after considering its credibility and track records in operations.
The bank will submit all necessary documents to the Green Banking and CSR Department of BB within 15 days after launching of the banking services to the street children.
On March 10, 2014 the central bank in a circular asked all banks to allow street children and child workers open bank accounts by taking a deposit of Tk 10 only, which the banks are now offering to farmers and others who cannot afford normal banking services.
Following the directive, 10 banks teamed up with the non-government organisation Save the Children for offering the service to the destitute children who have no option other than living and working in railway stations, bus and ferry terminals, slums and footpaths.

The central bank plans to inspect HSBC's local office after the publication of reports linked to 34 client accounts of Bangladeshis in the banking giant's tax leaks.

Inspectors will check whether the client accounts associated with Bangladesh are legal, Mahfuzur Rahman, executive director of Bangladesh Bank and deputy head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), told reporters yesterday.

The BB summoned HSBC's officials in Dhaka to the central bank headquarters.

“We will also write to the FIU of Switzerland seeking details of the Bangladeshis who were named in the report.”

Leaked documents show that 34 accounts associated with Bangladesh had a total of $13 million in HSBC Suisse, which has been accused of abetting affluent tax-dodgers across the world.

“We will cooperate with the central bank in every possible way,” said Talukdar Noman Anwar, head of communications at HSBC's Bangladesh office.

HSBC started business in Bangladesh in 1996. It does business with retail and commercial banking, but with no private banking, according to the bank.

The leaked report showed that the accounts from Bangladesh were opened between 1985 and 2006, including seven offshore accounts.

Of the $13 million deposits by Bangladeshis, a maximum amount of money associated with a single client was $4.4 million. However, the report did not mention the name of the individual who had the maximum amount there.

Bangladesh is ranked 148th among 203 countries in terms of the deposited money. India is ranked 16th with $4.1 billion deposited with the HSBC's Swiss branch, Pakistan 48th with $859.7 million, Nepal 116th with $54 million, Myanmar 133th with $26.5 million and Sri Lanka 112th with over $58 million.

The man at the centre of the SwissLeaks tax scandal in Britain is a soft-spoken Church of England clergyman who turned HSBC into Europe's biggest bank, and was once seen as a model of ethics in finance.

HSBC's former chief executive and chairman, Stephen Green, used to be courted for his advice by politicians of all stripes and by the Anglican hierarchy, but now he finds himself widely shunned.

The ex-banking titan was pursued down a London street by a BBC journalist this week in the wake of the revelations, refusing to answer questions.

"I'm not prepared to make any comments about HSBC business past or present," the 66-year-old Green said before walking off, clutching his briefcase.

Growing pressure may force him to change his mind.

Green has been asked to testify before a British parliamentary committee which is investigating who knew what, when about alleged tax dodging strategies on accounts containing tens of billions of pounds.

The fall from grace has been particularly astonishing for a man praised for steering HSBC through the global financial crisis without the bailouts using taxpayer money that other banks resorted to.

The son of a lawyer, Green began his career with the management consultancy McKinsey in 1978 and joined HSBC in 1982, rising to the top of an institution with its historical roots in the British empire.

As he rose through the ranks in his 28-year career with the bank , he was also ordained as an Anglican clergyman in 1988. He has spoken frequently about the need for an ethical approach in banking.

He has written a book entitled "Serving God? Serving Mammon?" about how to reconcile being a Christian with working in finance, as well as calling for "enlightened" capitalism.

The links between the Church of England and the world of business are not so unusual and there are many ordained clergy in secular employment.

Since his retirement, Green has also advised the Church of England on how to reform its hierarchy -- putting forward proposals that have proved controversial as being too business-minded.

In a letter in the Guardian this week, a fellow clergyman, Reverend Paul Nicolson from the campaign group Taxpayers Against Poverty, criticised Green.

"The Rev Stephen Green's chairmanship of HSBC while legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion were taking place raises important questions for the Church of England about the role of all clergy in secular employment," Nicolson wrote.

The focus of the political controversy over Green, however, has been his time in government in a period after the revelations about HSBC's Swiss private banking arm first surfaced in 2007.