Bangladesh Bank on Monday said that scheduled banks would be able to operate their agent banking in municipal areas besides in the rural areas.
To this end, the BB issued a circular to managing directors and chief executive officers of all banks saying that they (banks) could not operate their agent banking in the metropolitan and city corporation areas.
The BB had earlier said that the banks had to operate their agent banking in the rural areas.
Under the agent banking, a bank appoints any individual or NGO or microfinance institution as its agent for providing limited-scale banking services, especially to the poor people.
Non-governmental organisations or microfinance institutions regulated by the Microcredit Regulatory Authority of Bangladesh will be able to play as an agent of a bank.
On behalf of the banks, the agents can transact cash, distribute remittance, gather information for bank accounts, accept loan applications, transact and recover loans and receive applications for credit and debit cards.
Bank agents can also receive utility bills and passport fees and distribute government assistance under social safety net programmes.
Bangladesh Bank gave permission to two banks on May 29 to provide agent-banking services. The banks are Bank Asia and NRB Bank.

The government will start its efforts to bring banks' stockmarket exposure down to the permissible limit two years before the schedule of 2016, in keeping with the pledges made to the International Monetary Fund.
The amended Banking Companies Act (BCA), which was passed in July 2013, stipulates that banks cannot invest more than 25 percent of their total capital in stocks.
However, the central bank gave them until July 2016 to bring down their exposure, as the government did not want to impose the new limit right away lest the market became volatile. Now, the government has instructed Bangladesh Bank to initiate the process.
The move comes after the government made a host of promises to the IMF board in May, based on which the multilateral lender last week made available about $141 million for Bangladesh under its three-year Extended Credit Facility of about $987 million.
“For banks currently with stockmarket exposure above the permissible limit, BB will strictly monitor that the current exposures in nominal taka terms will not be increased and strictly enforce a steady reduction in their investments within the three-year period allowed in the BCA,” said the paper by the finance ministry to the IMF.
As of December 2013, the stockmarket exposure of banks and their subsidiaries were abnormally high: on average, it was 50 percent of their capital, and for many, it was as high as 150 percent.
The paper also spelt out a number of measures the government will focus on to strengthen governance, credit risk management and balance sheets of state-owned commercial banks, which have become an Achilles heel for taxpayers.
In one of the measures, the central bank will assess, by December 2014, the conformity of the banks with their recently approved internal control and compliance policies.
The government will also be tough on the implementation of the central bank's memorandum of understandings with the state banks to improve the latter's performance.
“We will impose strong sanctions provided for in the MoUs in case of non-compliance, particularly regarding areas which are directly under the control of banks, such as credit growth ceilings and limits on single borrower exposures and related lending.”
The paper said if any bank breaches the credit growth ceiling, BB will order the lender to deposit the entire excess amount lent over the credit limit.
The relaxed loan rescheduling guidelines, introduced in December 2013 to help borrowers ride out the impacts of last year's political unrest, will not be extended beyond June 2014, it said. To ensure proper utilisation of the temporary policy and prevent the possibility of misuse, BB will order banks to issue quarterly status reports on the restructured loans and monitor the reports.
BB will also verify the rescheduled loan accounts and inspect them on a case-by-case basis to ensure compliance with the central bank's approval conditions.   
If any restructured loan is defaulted on, BB will instruct that it be classified adversely and the required provision be made. Banks have rescheduled loans about Tk 14,000 crore as of March this year under the facility.

Jayant Rikhye, head of International Asia Pacific for HSBC and head of strategy and planning, is due to arrive in Dhaka today on a two-day visit, the bank said in a statement.
Rikhye will meet colleagues from Bangladesh and a number of key HSBC clients and stakeholders during the visit, it said.
Rikhye has direct responsibility for over 12 markets in Asia, comprising Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Mauritius, New Zealand, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. In this capacity, he is a key source of support and guidance to country chief executives of the corporation.
Rikhye joined HSBC Group in 1989 and has experience in operations in India, internal control and securities services in the Philippines, corporate banking in Taiwan and financial institutions group and institutional fund services in Hong Kong.
His more recent appointments include acting chief operating officer for the Saudi British Bank in Riyadh and head of securities services for the Middle East and North Africa based in the United Arab Emirates.

 IFIC Bank Limited declared 15 percent stock dividend for its shareholders for the year 2013.

The announcement came at the 37th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the bank held at the Bashundhara Convention Centre at Bashundhara Residential Area in Dhaka on Sunday. Salman F Rahman, Chairman, Board of Directors of the bank presided over the meeting.

Mohammad Lutfar Rahman, Chairman of the Executive and Risk Management Committee of the bank, Syed Anisul Huq, Chairman of Audit Committee and member of the Board, Monirul Islam, Mohammed Nayem Syed and Jalal Ahmed, Directors, Shah A Sarwar, Managing Director and AKM Mozharul Hoque, Company Secretary attended the meeting.

Different business related issues of last year and future work plans were discussed in the meeting.

The shareholders approved the audited financial statements of the bank for the year 2013. They also approved the proposals of issuance of 15 percent stock dividend, one rights share against every existing share and subordinate bond of Tk 3000 million. 

Bangladesh Bank (BB) has relaxed its rules on opening of new branches by commercial banks in the country.

In a circular yesterday, the central bank said branches of banks opened in metropolitan cities/city corporations and pourashanas of “Ka” and “Kha” classes will now be considered as “urban branches”.

Branches that are operating within the area of “Ga” class pourashavas and union parishads will be considered as “rural branches”.