As liquidity crisis appears, the scam hit Sonali Bank has begun to depend largely on the inter-bank call money market to maintain its daily banking activities, officials said.

Sonali, the country's largest state-owned commercial bank, is facing huge financial crisis due to the recent loan scandals.

 
In one of the scam, Hall-Mark Group and five other companies in connivance with several bank officials and executives embezzled nearly Tk 3,600 crore (funded and non-funded) from the bank's Hotel Ruposhi Bangla Branch, creating immense liquidity pressure on the bank.

Earlier, it shelved many business decisions and disbursement of fresh loans to its clients due to fund crunch.
Available data shows that the bank has borrowed Tk 825 crore from the money market in past few days in order to ease the bank's liquidity crisis. 

  
The bank borrowed Tk 350 crore on December 18, Tk 275 crore on December 26 and Tk 200 crore on December 27 (Thursday).  
"The bank hit by scams is under duress to borrow funds from the money market," said a senior Sonali Bank official told The New Nation yesterday.

He added that the banks financial condition had become weak and as much, it had to borrow funds to deal with the daily transactions.  
"The heavy borrowing by the public entities also created immense liquidity pressure on Sonali Bank's treasury," the official further added.

The official noted that borrowings by the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) from Sonali Bank kept on mounting and for some instances their loans moved up to 50 per cent year-on-year.

   
He, however, said that borrowing funds from the call money market is a normal practice for the banks and financial institutions in which they have to borrow and lend money from the market in any crisis moment.

 
According to Bangladesh Bank (BB) data, Tk 44,185.50 crore was traded in the inter-bank call money market between December 18 and 27 at 11 to 14 per cent interest rates.

BB officials said the inter-bank call money market witnessed some volatility over the last few days with rising liquidity pressure from the banks and financial institutions.

The weighted average rate (WAR) call money, however, reached 10.33 per cent during the period.