Bangladesh Bank (BB) last year received the highest number of complaints from customers against Sonali Bank, Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) and Standard Chartered Bank (SCB), according to a latest report of the central bank. The Financial Integrity and Customer Services Department (FICSD) of BB yesterday published the annual report for 2013-14 on the activities of its Customers’ Interests Protection Centre (CIPC), reports BSS.
According to the report, the CIPC received the highest number of complaints against the state-owned bank (SoB), Sonali among all the scheduled banks of the country. Two other SoBs - Janata and Agrani - were on the second and the third position on the same row.
Among the private banks, customers lodged the highest number of complaints against IBBL. On the same scale, SCB was at the top of the foreign banks operating in Bangladesh.
The CIPC received a total of 4,476 complaints during 2013-14, of which 4,291 were solved. The rate of dispute resolution was 98.31 per cent since introduction of the FICSD, the report said.
FICSD, established in March, 2011, received a total of 10,990 complaints against different banks in the past three years, of which 10,805 were sorted out.
Most of the complaints were related to trade bill, general banking, loan and advances, remittances, mobile banking and debit, credit and ATM cards.
“The statistics justified the implication and importance of setting up a centre to listen to people and solve their problem,” said Governor Atiur Rahman after launching the report at the central bank headquarters in the capital city yesterday.
He said the central bank is committed to ensure and establish transparency and accountability in the banking sector, and the measures to protect customers’ interest were a strong step forward to this end.
Consumers’ Association of Bangladesh (president Golam Rahman, Deputy Governor SK Sur Chowdhury, Association of Bankers, Bangladesh  president Ali Reza Iftekhar and BB Executive Director S M Moniruzzaman attended the programme, chaired by general manager of FICSD M Saiful Islam.