Ehsan Khasru

Prime Bank Ltd, country's one of the leading private commercial banks (PCBs) is going to launch mobile-banking by the first quarter of 2012 in its strong bid to grab the unbanked areas of the economy.

"We have received the central bank permission very recently to launch mobile banking and we are taking final preparations in this regard to include the unbanked population of our country under our banking network," Ehsan Khasru, managing director of Prime Bank Ltd told The FE in an interview recently.

He said the second generation PCB has already surpassed many first generation PCBs in all areas of banking business.

"Prime Bank  remains number one in all parameters of banking business over the years due to a strong and dedicated pool of human resources under the dynamic leadership of a board and we like to consolidate our position through more excellent services to our valued customers in near future," Mr Ehsan Khasru mentioned.

He said launching of new products under Shariah-based Islamic banking and stock market operation as well, the bank will be able to grab unexplored markets of the country's financial sector in the new year.

The bank has two subsidiaries in the stock market operation.

Prime Bank now has a total of 116 branches country-wide and more six branches will be added by the end of this month (December).

"We have a target to open more 15 branches in 2012, subject to the approval of Bangladesh Bank," the Prime Bank MD said.

In testimony to the bank's healthy growth, the non-performing loan remains very low (only 1.73 per cent) while the deposit and credit growths were 25 per cent and 13 per cent respectively in recent years.

Till November 30, 2011 the bank achieved 34 per cent growth in deposit, 21 per cent in advance, 18 per cent in import, 28 per cent in export and 30 per cent in remittance over the corresponding month of 2010.

Commenting to the bank's growing involvement with corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, Mr Khasru said the central bank in its recent publication included Prime Bank at the top list of banks.

"CSR activities are one of the cornerstones in the banking operation of us and we spend four per cent of our annual profit for CSR," the Prime Bank MD said.

The bank's CSR activities include providing scholarship to poor but brilliant students, establishments of nursing academy, eye academy/hospital, sponsoring sports like golf, swimming, chess, handball etc.

In recognition to the bank's excellence in dissemination of proper disclosures in the annual reports, Prime Bank won awards from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh earlier.

"Very recently, we won another award from Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh (ICMAB) and we will receive the award on December 12," Mr Khsaru disclosed.

Commenting on the stock market packages announced recently, the senior banking professional said the incentives will bring positive results in due time.

"Certainly the packages are very good to revive the stock market but no magic will happen overnight…and the banks must invest in the stock market on their own need," Mr Khasru said.

Regarding on compliance of Basel-two, the Prime Bank MD said : We are highly complied on Basel-two and now thinking on Basel-three.

Source: The Financial/ Bangladesh/ 8th Dec 2011