WASHINGTON, Sept 29: The International Monetary Fund approved Friday $2.7 billion in gold sales profits to boost financing to low-income countries.

The IMF executive board earmarked the money for the global lender's concessional lending program, the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust. The distribution of the windfall profits will occur "only when members have given satisfactory assurances that an amount equivalent to at least 90 percent of the distribution will be made available to the PRGT," the institution said in a statement.

"This is a major step towards putting our important concessional lending operations for low-income members on a sustainable footing," IMF managing director Christine Lagarde said.

"During the 2009 financial crisis, we were able to boost financial assistance to our low-income country members, helping them weather the storm and preserve their hard-fought gains in the battle against poverty."

Jubilee USA Network, an alliance of activists advocating debt cancelation to fight poverty, cheered the board's decision, saying combined with a first installment of $1.1 billion, the IMF has put nearly $4 billion into the PRGT from the windfall gold profits.

"This translates into real relief for some of the world's poorest people," said Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network.

"This has been a global campaign more than two years in the making and our work paid off."

The IMF sold more than 400 tonnes of gold in 2009-2010 in a bid to put the Washington-based lender's finances on a sound long-term footing.

Due to the high price of gold at the time, the IMF booked $3.8 billion in profits.

News: The Daily Independent/Bangladesh/30-Sep-12

Md. Nazmus Salehin, Additional Managing Director of Standard Bank Limited, hands over a certificate to an officer of the bank at the bank’s training institute in Dhaka recently.

Standard Bank Limited organised a week-long training course on ‘Handling Procedures of Documentary Credit’ at the bank’s Training Institute in Dhaka recently.

Md. Nazmus Salehin, Additional Managing Director of the bank distributed the certificates among the participants as chief guest, said a press release Saturday.

AFM Nizamul Islam Chowdhury, Company Secretary, AF Mosihur Rahman, Principal, SBL Training Institute were attended the function.

While speaking Nazmus Salehin emphasised the importance of the course and reminded the duties and responsibilities of the participants in their professional life.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/30-Sep-12

Banks and tax offices saw a low turnout yesterday, the penultimate day for submission of tax returns.

The crowd to deposit amounts to the state coffers was higher on Thursday than yesterday, said an official of Sonali Bank's Ramna corporate branch.

At 3.40pm, the number of vouchers submitted for tax payment at the branch stood at 182, with the official suggesting that the total number might reach 250 in the remaining period.

In contrast, on Thursday, nearly 600 vouchers related to tax payment were submitted.

Tax offices and banks' major branches were open yesterday, a bank holiday, to facilitate taxpayers in meeting the Sunday deadline.

“We have recorded higher submission of tax returns from salaried persons today,” said Md Abdus Samad Al Azad, a joint commissioner of tax.

He, too, said the crowd to submit returns was relatively low in comparison to normal working days.

"The pressure for return submission was much higher on Thursday," another tax official told The Daily Star, while disclosing that 100-odd returns were submitted by 3pm at his office.

“But those who submitted their returns and completed the bank-related formalities today did not have to wait long in the queues,” he added.

Changes in tax circles and zones posted on the National Board of Revenue website also reduced hassle of taxpayers.

Rehana Nabi, a retired government employee, submitted her return to the new circle seeing the changes on revenue board's website.

MA Quader Sarker, a member-in-charge of tax administration and monitoring, too, said the turnout was low compared to other days, while adding that the NBR is yet to decide on the time extension for filling in returns.

Earlier, Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry and tax lawyers demanded the NBR extend the deadline to accommodate the plight of the taxpayers in locating their new circles, following the doubling of the field offices this year.

As of September 27, return submissions rose to 280,000 from 231,000 in the same period a year ago, an NBR official said.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/30-Sep-12

Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman, second from right, speaks at the 2012 AFI Global Policy Forum at Cape Town in South Africa on Thursday.

The global economic crisis has brought into attention the need for inclusive growth-focused policies, Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman said.

He cited Bangladesh's real GDP, which has been growing at over 6 percent plus amid the global slowdown, as an example.

“The inclusive growth-focused monetary and credit policies have helped the economy maintain a firm foothold on a stable progress path,” Rahman said at the 2012 AFI Global Policy Forum at Cape Town on September 27.

Poverty alleviation, too, has been gaining pace, with a sharp uptrend in rural wages.

“Central banks can play a catalytic role in this reorientation of goals of financial institutions and markets towards the socially responsible inclusive lending practices, by ensuring adequate credit flows to the underserved or financially-excluded economic sectors and population segments.”

Following the global financial crisis the BB launched a countrywide financial inclusion campaign to motivate and guide banks to reach out cost effectively to the underserved rural and urban poor.

Given the fast growing popularity of mobile telephony, mobile financial services (MFS) emerged as a solution, and in 2011 BB issued a guideline on it.

So far 23 banks have been given the licence for MFS, and 14 banks have already started their operations, informed Rahman.

Over the past two years, around 1.3 crore no-frills accounts have been opened in the names of hitherto unbanked people with initial deposits as low as Tk 10, revealed the BB governor.

Bangladesh's daily transaction via mobile banking stands at Tk 33 crore on average, Rahman thinks, provide ample evidence of the ever deepening role of financial inclusion in GDP growth.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/30-Sep-12

Syful Islam

State-owned Agrani Bank Limited's main branch granted Tk 62.85 million in loan to one Fazlur Rahman & Co against 24 decimals of land and other properties shown as collateral. But a central bank investigation team later found no trace of the company office nor it found any establishment of it.

In another case the branch granted Tk 160 million in funded loan and Tk 200 million in non-funded loan to one Roko Enterprise against forged documents on land located in Gazipur. Despite the forgery, within two months the CC (Hypo) was raised to Tk 80 million, letter of credit (LC) loan to Tk 200 million and Loan against Trust Receipts (LTR) to Tk 80 million against the same collateral worth Tk 140 million.

In the following month the customer applied for further enhancement of the LC loan to Tk 350 million and the LTR to Tk 200 million. The branch sent the application to its credit committee within two days of its submission.

These are two examples of Agrani Bank's irregularities in sanctioning bank loans, which finally led to filing of suits against the borrowers to recover the money.

Until August last, the Bank had 6,990 cases remaining pending with different Artha Rin Adalats or money loan courts, involving Tk 37.70 billion, according to statistics available with the bank.

About 214 writ petitions involving Tk 3.71 billion also remain pending with higher courts.

Legal experts think the number of money suits of state-owned banks might have not gone up to this high, had proper guidelines been followed in sanctioning loans.

"Bankers will have to think first whom they are granting loans and if the applicants are eligible or not. Had they cautiously checked the documents of applicants before sanctioning loans, the scenario might not have been this worse," the bank's senior lawyer and legal adviser S A Rahim told the FE.

Mr Rahim, legal adviser of the Bank for over two decades, thinks in many cases of loan approval the bankers are guided by 'something different' rather than professional integrity.

He said there were many examples that authorities granted loans without necessary collateral, against inflated prices of mortgaged properties and on receipt of forged documents as collateral.

"The Hallmark loan scam is one of the many such wrongdoings which are yet to come to light," he said adding a major portion of bank officials were involved in corrupt practices.

Agrani Bank's deputy general manager Md Shahidullah, who deals with legal matters, told the FE Thursday as a routine work they were pursuing quick disposal of pending cases.

He said the major reason behind the buildup of case backlog was the writ petitions filed with higher courts. "If a writ petition lies with the Appellate Division, there is no surety that it will soon be disposed of because of the shortage of benches there."

"There is only one bench in the Appellate Division to dispose of all the writ petitions. So, the cases remain pending for years," Mr Shahidullah added.

He, however, said the number of writ petitions of his bank was now very small. "Out of Tk 3.71 billion stuck against writ petitions, only two cases involve around Tk 1.0 billion."

Mr Shahidullah, however, said now the cases were being disposed of faster than earlier.

News: The Daily Financial Express/Bangladesh/29-Sep-12