Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman speaks to the NBFI chiefs at the BB conference room in the city on Sunday.

The central bank will take measures to develop a strong bond market for the private sector financial instructions to create opportunity for collecting more funds through issuing bonds.

Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman sought cooperation from the Non-Banking Financial Institutes (NBFI) in this regard during a meeting with the chief executives of the country’s NBFIs on Sunday.
The meeting between NBFI chiefs and Bangladesh Bank was held at the BB conference room.

The meeting, presided over by the BB governor, discussed important issues relating to development of bond market, minimum term of deposit collection, deposit Insurance Coverage and bank-imposed interest rate on term loans.

The meeting revealed that three institutions had issued asset backed Securitisation Bonds of Tk 1.71 billion (2004 to 07) while five institutions issued Zero Coupon Bonds worth Tk 8.50 billion (2001-08).

The BB Governor told the meeting that the private sector institutions, particularly the Insurance Companies, were not making any such investment in local bonds. Besides, the opportunity of expanding the Islamic Bond Market was not possible to accept to that level.

In response to a proposal of the NBFI chiefs to keep the minimum term of deposit collection at 6 months, Atiur felt that the proposal was irrational and said the existing term would be keep intact.

He said the Deposit Insurance Department would immediately take initiatives to bring the financial institutes under the deposit insurance act.

The governor however said the central bank would extend its cooperation regarding the tax rebate of DPS, mentioning that the National Board of Revenue (NBR) can consider the issue.

He also mentioned that for the first time, a separate chapter on the activities of the financial institutions has been added in the annual report (Chapter-6) of Bangladesh bank.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ 20th Feb 2012