The companies, supplying different types of products including ATM cards to the banks, are allegedly being forced to open accounts at some respective banks for getting their payments.

However, the bank insiders told the FE that there was no official policy or decision of having mandatory account at the concerned banks for giving payment to the supplier companies against their services and products.

"No bank can officially force the supplier companies (or any other person) to open account," they said, adding that some bank officials might informally have asked or requested the supplier companies to open accounts at their own banks to mitigate the banks' ongoing deposit crisis to some extent.

An official of such a victim supplier company told the FE that they were verbally, in some cases in written, were asked to open account at the concerned banks if they wanted to get payment of their services and products provided to the banks.

The banks' officials expressed their inability to issue any cheque or pay order against any payment of any kind of service or product, he said.

When contacted, a concerned bank official, against whom such a claim was made, denied the allegation and said that they always give payments to the supplier companies through 'cheque or pay order'.

Expressing helplessness over the calls of most of the banks-cum-clients to open accounts at their branches, a victim supplier-official posed a question, "Is it possible or logical to open separate accounts at all banks?"

"We can neither open many account nor directly deny their requests because they are our clients," he said.

Financial Express/Bangladesh/ 10th April 2012