NRB Commercial Bank Ltd has stepped into the fifth year today, as it officially started its transactions on April 18, 2013.

Marking the occasion in a befitting manner, the bank has chalked out elaborate programmes at  all its branches across the country.

In an exclusive interview with daily sun at the bank’s head office in the city yesterday, Dewan Mujibur Rahman, managing director and CEO of the bank, thanked its directors, sponsors, customers, employees and stakeholders of the bank on the occasion.

He said NRBC Bank could secure a prominent and respectful position in the banking industry of the country as an emerging banking institution with innovative and modern banking services tailored to the needs of people of all strata.

Mujibur claimed that NRBC Bank reached a significant milestone with its agent banking and  the Wall Street Journal ran a news item about its agent banking on April 11.

 “NRBC Bank has been contributing to financial inclusion of the unbanked, or those who are far from bank branches, through its agent banking”, he continued.  The managing director said though the Bangladesh economy passed through various challenges in the previous years; we could open some 11 new branches at different locations of the country. “We have now 51 branches and want to reach mass people at different corners of Bangladesh quickly and provide them with  quality banking services,” he added.

He said NRBC Bank has so far reached over 1,30,000 of different types of accounts with 58.72 percent growth and the deposit of the bank was Tk.4559.05 crore, increased by 52.08 percent, while loans and advance was Tk.3740.79 crore with 61.05 percent growth with minimum NPL.

“As per SME rating of Bangladesh Bank, NRBC Bank was in the fifth position among all banks.

And the bank was also awarded Appreciation Letter by the central bank for achieving ‘Agricultural Credit Target’,” he added.

Mujibur said, “We kept diversification of our credit portfolio in different business sectors and industrial besides encouraging extending loans to different green finance, women entrepreneurs and agriculture sectors.”

In response to a query, he explained as we focused on popularisation of our Plastic Money products, we founded some 39 ATM booths and our different types of cards was over 20,000.

Expressing his optimism, he said his bank will be able to set up at least 10 more branches all over the country in the current year.

“We would like to reach every corner of our country with quality services and assistance to our regular business clients, focusing more on small, medium and micro credit industry”, he expected.