The Bangladesh Bank on Tuesday introduced three software solutions to monitor banks’ activities relating to purchases of inland and foreign documentary bills for letters of credit and flow of inward and outward remittances to ensure transparency in the foreign exchange transaction.

A BB official told New Age that authorised dealer branches of all banks had already started to send reports on foreign exchange transactions including purchases of inland documentary bills through the software products.
The three software products are online import management system, online TM form management system, and online C-form and wage earner’s remittance reporting system.

The BB official said that the AD branches were now sending reports on the purchases of the IDB and the FDB through the online import management system software daily.
The system will help the banking sector regulator handle the large-scale embezzlement like Hallmark Group-Sonali Bank scam, he said.

He said, ‘Banks will provide the BB with import-related information through the software on mandatory basis when they will give bills of acceptance to the exporter banks.’
‘After getting information from the BB, the exporter banks will decide whether they will purchase the inland bill or not,’ he said.

Earlier, banks submitted import-related data to the BB on paper on monthly basis.
‘So, the BB could not detect embezzlements in time,’ the BB official said adding that the central bank would now be able to check every bill of acceptance.

A BB investigation earlier found that the Sonali Bank’s Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch had given Hallmark Group and five other companies Tk 3,606.48 crore in loan between 2007 and May 2012 against forged IDBP documents for local LCs.

Another BB official said that if any bank gave excess bills of acceptance to other bank, the central bank would be informed promptly because of the software.
He said that the BB would monitor the flow of outward remittances by banks through online TM management system software.

Banks have to send data relating to inward remittances through the online C-form and wage earner’s remittance reporting system software.
He said that the BB had been monitoring banks’ export data through a software solution for more than one year.

From now on, the BB will be able to monitor all types of the local and the cross border foreign exchange transactions through the software solutions, said the BB official.
He said that the money laundering would be decreased in the coming days due to the online monitoring.