The World Bank (WB) Wednesday lauded the government’s prioritised initiatives to build up a strong and effective regulatory and supervisory system for Bangladesh’s banking sector through automation.

The praise came in a WB statement headlined “Automation of Bangladesh Bank (BB) to achieve excellence” issued here on Wednesday. With the WB’s support, the Central Bank Strengthening Project (CBSP) is supporting the overall strengthening of BB, including automation of its core functions, to enable Bangladesh Bank to effectively play its role as the country’s monetary authority and bank regulator.

In response to a request from the government, the WB has extended the project for one year, December 2012. The project was scheduled to end on December 31, 2011.

A source in the WB told BSS that the nine-year project is being implemented at a cost of US$37 million. The statement said the project has made significant progress with introducing automation system in Bangladesh Bank.
All Bangladesh Bank branches are now connected to each other online and also to the Bangladesh Bank’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Banking systems.

The central bank’s IT organisation is now capable to conceptualize, procure and deliver large scale IT systems. The systems ERP and Core Banking Solution have gone live.

To achieve the project objectives, said the statement, complete implementation of the National Payment Switch and Bangladesh Bank’s Office Modernisation components have to be accomplished.

Once these two activities take off, the BB would be on its way to successfully achieve the objectives of this project.

The Daily Independent/Bangladesh/ 5th Jan 2012