Prime Insurance signs deal with StanChart Bank
Prime Insurance Company signed cash management solution agrerement with Standard Chartered Bank in Dhaka recently.
Under the arrangement, Standard Chartered Bank will provide payroll solution to the employees of Prime Insurance and Cash Management Solutions that will enable Prime Insurance to manage their transactional cash flows and provide prompt services to their clients, said a press release.
Md. Ezhar Hossain, Managing Director, Prime Insurance Company Limited and Hussain Shirazie, Director and Head of Transaction Banking, Standard Chartered Bank signed the agreement on behalf of the respective organisations.
Senior officials of both the organisations were present at the function.
Standard Chartered is a leading international banking group.
News:Daily Sun Bangladesh/13-2013
IFIC Bank receives performance award
Khd. Rashed Maqsood, Global Head of Financial Institutions Payments of Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions Group, Managing Director and Citi Country Officer for Bangladesh, hands over a crest to Shah A Sarwar, Managing Director and CEO of IFIC Bank on Tuesday at IFIC Bank’s Head Office in Dhaka.
IFIC Bank Limited received the 2013 Performance Excellence Award from Citibank, N.A. for achieving high standard in Straight-Through Processing (STP) via state-of-the-art international electronic payment processing.
Khd. Rashed Maqsood, Global Head of Financial Institutions Payments of Citi Treasury and Trade Solutions Group, Managing Director and Citi Country Officer for Bangladesh handed over a crest to Shah A Sarwar, Managing Director and CEO of IFIC Bank on Tuesday at IFIC Bank’s Head Office in Dhaka.
Prime Bank gets performance excellence award
Md. Ehsan Khasru, Managing Director and CEO of Prime Bank Limited, receives "2013 Performance Excellence Award" from Rashed Maqsood, Citi Country Officer, at the board room of the bank's head office recently.
Prime Bank Limited has been awarded "2013 Performance Excellence Award" by Citibank NA, USA recently.
Citi Country Officer Rashed Maqsood presented the award to Md. Ehsan Khasru, Managing Director and CEO of Prime Bank Ltd at the board room of its head office, said a press release.
Ahmed Kamal Khan Chowdhury, DMD, Md Yasin Ali and Kanti Kumar Saha, and Nuzhat Anwar, Head of Financial Institutions and Iffat Nagris, Resident Vice President of Citibank were also present at the award giving ceremony.
Prime Bank achieved this award for their leadership in the payments space through practicing its MT202 STP rate 95 percent and MT103 STP rate 98 percent.
Lending rate cut begins due to slump in banking business
Jebun Nesa Alo
The country’s commercial banks have begun reducing their lending rates thanks to excess liquidity in the money market and a central bank move to rationalise the interest rate spread (the difference between the average lending and deposit rates).
Some banks have already reduced their rates on loans and advances this month although this has not yet been announced officially, bankers said. Their announcements will be made in December while other banks are now at the planning stage.
The banks are reducing the lending rate to help increase the banks’ loans and advances while bringing the spread down to within the desired level, they said.
Having a huge amount of idle money accumulated due to poor demand for loans, the commercial banks earlier went for a heavy cut on the deposit rates, pushing up the spread above the desired level of 5%.
This prompted Bangladesh Bank to ask the commercial banks to cut the lending rate, said a senior executive of the central bank who recently expressed concern over banks crossing the threshold, especially Brac Bank and a number of foreign banks.
“The spread increased mainly due to lower deposit rates that came down due to a slump in banks’ business. The lending rates remained unchanged, on the other hand,” said Association of Bankers Bangladesh (ABB) President Nurul Amin.
He said the spread climbed since the beginning of this year. Barring a few exceptions, the average spread is not so alarming, he added. Bangladesh Bank data shows that the average spread was 4.91% in April, 2011 and that this has increased gradually to stand at 5.23% in July.
“Banks are going to cut lending rates individually from this month and might give announcements in December,’’ said the bankers’ president.
The average annual lending rate of the private banks stood at 14.36% and the deposit rate at 9.13% as of July down from the prvious month's rates of 14.44% and 9.1% respectively.
The spread of 26 banks remained above 5% as of July as per the latest Bangladesh Bank data. The spread of foreign banks averaged at 8.64% and among the private commercial banks, Brac bank’s spread was highest at 9.26%.
“The average spread crossed 5% despite the central bank’s directive to bring down the gap to the level below 5%,” Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor SK Sur Chowdhury said.
To do so, the central bank asked the banks to cut down the lending rate. It already warned 26 banks about crossing the limit.
The interbank call money rate remained stable at a range of between 7% and 7.5%, showing signs of adequate liquidity in the money market.
The call money rate came down to its lowest at 7% in last couple of weeks, and went as high as 8% in the last year. It, however, rose to 9% for just over one week ahead of Eid-ul Fitre.
“Banks should cut the lending rate now as the deposit rate has already been reduced. The lending rates of some banks, however, decreased slightly,” said Bangladesh Bank Chief Economist Hasan Zaman.
“The spread widened because of increasing non-performing loans (NPLs),” said Pubali Bank Managing Director Helal Ahmed Chowdhury. “It would come under control as the banks already started cutting down the lending rate from this month and signs are there that the political turmoil will ease.”
The ratio of NPLs to the total loans for the banking sector, in both gross and net terms, increased at the end of third quarter of FY13 compared to the second quarter, as per BB data.
Gross NPLs went up from 10% at the end of second quarter to 11.9% at the end of the third quarter. The overall banking industry NPL was 2.6% higher at the end of the third quarter of FY13 than the last five years' average of 9.3%.
News:Dhaka Tribune/14-Sep-2013
Finance firms top taxpayers’ list
Sohel Parvez
Financial sector entities and energy companies dominate the list of top 10 taxpaying firms that would be receiving “tax cards” from the National Board of Revenue next week.
The cards, to remain valid for one year, will be given for fiscal 2010-11 and fiscal 2011-12.
“We are providing the tax cards to encourage people to become tax compliant and help the government increase the amount of direct tax needed to finance the annual budget,” an NBR official said.
Of the 10 firms to receive the tax cards for fiscal 2011-12, five are from the financial sector — three banks, one life insurance company and one linked with the stockmarket — three from the energy sector and two from the manufacturing sector.
The financial sector entities had dominated the award list for fiscal 2010-11 as well: the list consists of six firms from the banking and finance sector, to be rounded off by firms from the energy and manufacturing sectors.
Well-known conglomerates, however, remained out of the lists, largely because of tax-related disputes, the official added.
From the companies, chairman and managing director of a firm will get the tax cards.
Together with the corporates, the revenue authority is set to honour 10 individuals with tax cards as well for their contributions to the state coffer, at the ceremony on September 15 marking the Income Tax Day.
The NBR has been observing the Income Tax Day since 2008 to motivate the people of a country rife with tax-dodging and non-compliance into paying taxes regularly.
At present, less than 1 percent of the 15.36 crore population pay taxes. The revenue authority thinks the number should be higher, given that the country has been experiencing steady economic growth, rising income and growing middle-class.
Also, the tax authority will honour taxpayers from district and city corporation levels in two categories — Longtime and Top taxpayers. Two longtime and three top taxpayers in each district or city corporation would be awarded for fiscal 2012-13.
The official said the companies were selected due to not having any default loan, income tax and VAT (value-added tax) related disputes in court. The firms paid taxes upwards of Tk 100 crore in each of the two years, he said.
Tax card winners will get some privileges including priority to reserve seats in the state-run airline, trains and water transport. The tax card holders will also be able to use the Commercially Important Person lounge at airports, according to the policy framed in 2011.
News:Thy Daily Star/14-Sep-2013