Bangladesh Bank (BB) Sunday directed all the scheduled banks operating in the country to facilitate bank accounts at Tk 10 each for the extreme poor women who are being supported by the government under Food and Livelihood Security (FLS) scheme.

The only requirement for opening such bank account is possessing the national identity card, reads a circular issued by the central bank last evening.

The central bank said the FLS beneficiaries could enjoy bank accounts without any service charge or any kind of fees once it is opened at any branch of any bank operating in the country.

Banks were asked by the central bank to implement this directive as soon as possible.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/19-Nov-12

Dr Atiur Rahman, Governor of Bangladesh Bank is seen at the inaugural session of the 12th SAARC Payment Council (SPC) meeting at a hotel in Dhaka Sunday.

Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman Sunday said an efficient and secure payment system is a vital component of financial market infrastructure to meet the growing internal and external clearing and payment-settlement needs of the businesses related to government, household and financial sectors.

The BB governor made the remarks while addressing the inaugural session of the 12th SAARC Payment Council (SPC) meeting in the city.

He said the SAARC Payments Council promotes collaboration and mutual assistance in reforms and development of the national payments systems in line with the international standard to expedite trade and investment flows in the region.

Bangladesh Bank hosted the day-long event at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel aiming at making bilateral payments among the SAARC member countries faster and easier and finding ways to address the challenges emerging in the process of global technological adoption in the financial systems.

Atiur further said Bangladesh has attained substantial progress through introducing the fully automated Bangladesh Automated Clearing House (BACH) for inter-bank clearing and settlement of paper based and electronic fund transfers, with rules and procedures conforming to CPSS core principles.

Clearing and settlement processes of paperless electronic fund transfers have the additional important feature of being greener or more ecologically suitable than the traditional paper based processes, he added.

He said, “our next medium term goal will be to put in place an Real time gross settlement systems (RTGS) for real time settlements over the medium term as high value transactions increase in number and volume”.

He also observed that SAARC member economies of diverse size and structure are understandably at different stages of payments system development.

The governor observed that deliberations in this SPC forum are proving useful in learning from each other’s experiences that may help speed up the eventual cross border interlinking of electronic fund transfer channels of all member countries.

Central bank officials from seven other SAARC countries — Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka participated in the day-long program.

Representatives from each country presented a separate country presentation in the meeting, highlighting the progress and updated payment system of their country.

According to a BB statement, governors of the SAARC Finance Group approved the proposal of setting up of the SAARC Payments Initiative (SPI) in October 2007. According to this decision of the SAARC Payments Council (SPC), the apex body responsible for policy making SAARC Payment Initiative (SPI) was established.

The SPI is a regional payment group formed by central banks or monetary authorities of the SAARC Finance Group to help each other reform national payment and settlement systems (PSS) individually and collectively.

The initiative of establishing the SPI was originated at the SAARC Finance Conference on “Towards a Regional Payment Group” held in Colombo in July 2007.

Bangladesh Bank is hosting the SAARC payment council meeting for a second time. Earlier, it hosted the 7th Meeting of SAARC Payments Council on March 28 in 2010.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/19-Nov-12

Bangladesh Bank is modernising its supervision system to help foil Hall-Mark-like scams, Finance Minister AMA Muhith told parliament yesterday.

Hall-Mark swindled more than Tk 2,600 crore out of state-run Sonali Bank over the last two years.

Lawmakers from both the ruling alliance and the opposition asked Muhith what measures the government has taken to stop recurrence of such forgery in the banking sector.

An experienced banker has already been appointed as fraud risk detection and risk mitigation adviser and started working, Muhith said.

A process was underway to amend the Banking Companies Act, 1991, he said, adding that the amendments, once approved, would put the banking sector in order.

Replying to another query, he said the government had no plan to control or confiscate wealth and money of the Hall-Mark Group.

Lawmaker Salma Islam from Jatiya Party asked Muhith whether the government has taken any measure to carry out an investigation to identify those involved in the Hall-Mark scam.

The minister, in a scripted reply, said cases have been sent to the Anti-Corruption Commission for taking action against those responsible.

The power to buy inland bills has been curtailed at the branch level and the full authority for the job has been given to the banks' head offices, aiming to stop recurrence of forgeries, he added.

“Chief executives of different banks have been warned so that Hall-Mark-like scams do not recur in the baking sector. The bankers' association has also been advised to ensure good governance."

On the waiver of bank interest during the present government, Muhith said the country's eight state banks waived interest worth Tk 4,561 crore of 213,588 loan receivers.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/19-Nov-12

The central bank will issue a guideline by January to stop suspicious transactions in the stockmarket.

Bangladesh Bank took the decision at a meeting of the National Coordination Committee against money laundering yesterday, with Finance Minister AMA Muhith in the chair.

A finance ministry official said the BB will issue the guideline to meet the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global anti-money laundering body.

The official said the guideline aims to prevent investment of money earned through suspicious transactions or criminal activities in the capital market.

A BB official said the guideline will be prepared on the basis of the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Also, in line with the recent amendment to the money laundering act, the stockmarket related institutions will have to report to the central bank's financial intelligence unit on suspicious transaction reports.

The BB official said the guideline will provide direction about how the suspicious transaction reports will be made maintaining the 'Know Your Client' option for opening beneficiary owners' accounts.

Debaprosad Devnath, general manager of Financial Intelligence Unit of the BB, said if the guideline is issued following the directives of the FATF, the foreign investors' confidence in Bangladesh's capital market will increase much.

It will also help attract more foreign investment in the stockmarket, he added.

A BB report submitted at the meeting said Bangladesh has not yet completely met the requirements of the international anti-money laundering body.

If the requirements are not met by January, Bangladesh may be blacklisted.

The meeting also decided that the anti-terrorism act will be amended by February to fulfil the conditions of the FATF.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/19-Nov-12

Bangladesh Bank aims to introduce a mechanism for faster settlement of funds transferred from one bank to another by 2014, particularly to help businesses get liquidity without any delay, said a senior official yesterday.

The arrangement, termed as Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS), is much faster than the present Electronic Fund Transfer Network (EFTN).

"High-value transfer will be done in real-time due to the introduction of the RTGS. It will accelerate the pace of business as liquidity flow will rise," said Dasgupta Asim Kumar, a BB executive director.

"We want to implement it by 2014," he told reporters at the 12th Saarc Payments Council meeting at Sonargaon Hotel in the capital.

Delegates from all Saarc states, except for Afghanistan, attended the meeting to devise strategies to ensure a smoother, safer and faster payment gateway for all, said Dasgupta.

"Another objective is to share experiences of each other," he said.

Central banks of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have already established the RTGS system, while the Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan have also made strides in implementing it, said the BB official.

"We are ahead of others in other aspects though," said Dasgupta, adding that the central bank has made progress in establishing the EFTN and an automated clearing house.

He also said the BB would a take service charge on automated cheque clearance and electronic fund transfer from the beginning of next year.

Inaugurating the meeting, Atiur Rahman, the BB governor, said automated clearance and EFTN have greatly facilitated promotion of financial inclusion by way of rapid expansion of mobile phone and smart card-based remote delivery of financial services.

“It has also facilitated cost-effective and speedy transactions,” he said.

The governor said the BB is now working towards a national payments switch to provide a common platform for inter-bank electronic payments originating from different delivery channels including ATMs (automated teller machine), POS (point of sales) terminals, internet, and mobile applications.

"The Saarc Payments Council may consider introducing training visits to payments system installations of other member countries. This may help speed up the eventual cross-border interlinking of electronic fund transfer channels of all member countries."

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/19-Nov-12