Bangladesh Bank (BB) has directed all of its branch offices to launch online services for core banking activities such as clearing cheques and re-financing services to banks.

The software has already been introduced by the central bank.

Punitive actions will be taken if any branch could not go online from August 26, BB governor Dr Atiur Rahman told reporters Thursday.

The BB also directed its branch offices to send statements of transactions to the central bank through the software namely 'Automated Banking Application Package'.

An official order, issued Thursday, asked the official in-charge of branch offices to initiate necessary measures to apply the software.

Earlier in Thursday morning, BB governor Dr Atiur Rahman sat in a tele-conference with the branch officials and inquired about their preparations to start applying of the software.

"BB's automation initiative is aimed at helping banks to provide faster and efficient services to clients," Dr Rahman told reporters.

He said the BB is gradually moving to shift the banking services to online from existing manual systems. "I hope, we could introduce completely 'paperless banking'," he said.

The governor said all eight branches of the central bank in Barisal, Khulna, Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Bogra, Motijheel and Sadarghat were given directives to abide by the latest order.

News: Daily Sun/Bangladesh/24-Aug-12