Says female officials face ‘gender harassment’

A file photo shows a branch of a private commercial bank in Dhaka. Bangladesh Bank on Thursday asked schedule banks not to give extra burden on their staff

Bangladesh Bank on Thursday asked scheduled banks not to impose extra pressure on their officials to collect deposits and not to keep them (officials) in banks’ branches for extra hours after closing the daily work. The central bank found allegations that the female officials of the banks are facing ‘gender harassment’ as management of the banks stuck them (female officials) till 7pm to 8pm after closing the daily work of the branches without any reason, said BB deputy governor SK Sur Chowdhury. The central bank said it would take punitive measures against the banks if they continue to impose extra pressure on their officials to collect deposits and perpetrate gender harassment to their female officials. The directions came from a quarterly bankers meeting between the BB and the banks at the central bank headquarters in the capital. BB governor Atiur Rahman presided over the meeting while managing directors of the banks were present. BB governor at the meeting said that competition among the banks had increased recently as they (banks) were now trying to collect more deposits from the clients by imposing extra-burden on their officials. The central bank asked the banks not to impose any deposit collection target for their probationary officers as such type of target are not in conformity with human banking. The clients are deprived of getting adequate services from the banks as the officers are busy to collect the deposits in a bid to increase the banks’ profit, Atiur said. He asked the banks to recruit more female officials and to appoint women bankers as deputy managing directors. BB deputy governor SK Sur Chowdhury after the meeting told reporters that some banks had recently sacked their officials without issuing any show-cause notice saying that their performance was not satisfactory. The BB asked the banks not to sack massively and to give more chance to improve their performance, he said. Some banks are dilly-dallying to pay the provident and gratuity fund if any official wants to leave the bank, he said. The BB asked the banks to make payment against the provident and gratuity funds in due time, otherwise the central bank would be compelled to take action, he said. The BB asked the banks to reschedule the defaulted loans following the existing circular as they (banks) frequently sought no-objection certificate to do it by giving extra rebate to the defaulters, he said. The banks should follow the existing circular for loan rescheduling as 200 applications, where the clients sought to give lower down payment to the banks, are now pending in the central bank, according to a bankers’ meeting minutes. The BB asked the banks to set a minimum service charge ceiling for issuing their debit card as some banks are imposing excess charges on the products, Sur said. He said the BB had asked the banks to continue their efforts to decrease the rate of interest on lending adding that the rate, however, decreased two per cent in the last two months. The BB asked the banks to increase their loan disbursement to the real-estate sector as the entrepreneurs of the sector alleged that they did not get adequate loans from the banks. The central bank asked the banks to increase the job-age limit of the sons and daughters of the freedom fighters to 32-yea.