Banks will remain open tomorrow to help people pay their taxes, according to a Bangladesh Bank circular issued yesterday.

The order for all major branches of banks at districts and divisional cities came following a request from the National Board of Revenue.

The revenue authority will also keep tax offices open to give taxpayers one more day to submit their returns.

The move comes as the deadline for tax return submission ends on Sunday, while many taxpayers are yet to submit returns facing difficulties in finding their respective tax circles.

Taxpayers faced troubles after the NBR expanded its tax circles to 649 from 303 by increasing its zones to drive more people into the tax net.

The tax offices will remain open from 9am to 5pm tomorrow. The offices will also stay open until Sunday evening.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/29-Sep-12

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) will keep tax offices open on Saturday to give payers one more day to submit returns.

The NBR also urged Bangladesh Bank to keep the major branches of all banks open in divisional cities and district towns.

The move comes as the deadline for tax return submission ends on September 30 while many taxpayers are yet to submit returns facing difficulties in finding their respective tax circles.

Taxpayers faced troubles after the NBR expanded its tax circles to 649 from 303 by increasing its zones to drive more people into the tax net.

"We are sympathetic to the problems of taxpayers. That's why, we have asked offices to remain open on Saturday," said MA Quader Sarker, member in charge of NBR's tax administration and monitoring.

The tax offices will remain open from 9am to 5pm on Saturday. The offices will also stay open until the evening of September 30.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/27-Sep-12

Six local entrepreneurs will get $48.55 million foreign loans for expanding their projects.

The Scrutiny Committee of the Suppliers’ Credit Committee of the Bangladesh Bank at its 68th meeting approved the foreign loan proposals.

The meeting was held Tuesday at Bangladesh Bank head office in Dhaka, said a press release.

Of the total amount, $9.75 million has been approved in favour of NovoAir Limited, while $0.5 million for RZ Power Limited, $7.5 million for Esquire Knit Composite Limited, $9.0 million for SQ Celsius Limited and $20.0 million for KYCR Coils Limited.

Dr Atiur Rahman, Governor of Bangladesh Bank presided over the meeting. Committee members including representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Industries, Board of Investment and officials of the committee were also present.

The highest annual interest rate of the loan is 6-month LIBOR+4.0 and the tenor is at least 5 years.

The committee was informed that more foreign financing proposals had been under processing and close consideration for approval.

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

The central bank has introduced a refinance loan scheme worth $50 million to encourage environment-friendly and automatic brick kilns in the country.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has given the fund to the Bangladesh Bank, said a circular issued by the BB recently.

All banks and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) are eligible to get the fund from the central bank at 5 percent, while banks and non-banks would charge reasonable interest rates from their clients.

The BB also issued a guideline in this regard.

Of the total fund, $30 million will be disbursed to convert the existing fixed chimney kilns into the improved Zigzag kilns.

The remaining $20 million will be lent to new vertical shaft brick kilns, hybrid Hoffman kilns and tunnel kilns, said the circular.

A commercial bank or an NBFI can get maximum 50 percent of the total project costs from the BB's refinance fund and 20 percent from their own fund.

An entrepreneur must provide the rest 30 percent of the costs.

The repayment period of such loans will be five years, with six months' grace period.

The circular said a bank will have to take prior approvals from the ADB and the BB before disbursing more than $2 million loan for a project. A bank can lend up to $5 million for a single project, it said.

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

Siddique Islam

The central bank is collecting information on inland bill purchase (IBP) to find out the link of the bills with the Hallmark scam that involved the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of Sonali Bank Ltd, officials said Monday.

A total of 19 inspection teams of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) are now collecting information from 50 branches of 27 commercial banks located in the capital Dhaka and Narayanganj.

The inspectors have been asked to assess the value of the IBP linked with the Hallmark scam and identify the persons who were responsible for the financial scam.

The probe teams would also examine diligence of the bank officials concerned in purchasing the IBP Bangladesh Bank (BB) officials said, adding that the inspectors would have to collect the name of the bank branch or the person, who benefited finally.

A single-member team was assigned on September 13 last in this connection and it asked the probe teams to submit their reports to the general manager of the Department of Financial Integrity and Customer Services (DFICS) of the BB by September 18.

"We're collecting the information as part of our monitoring to assess authenticity as well as value of the IBP concerning the Hallmark scam," a senior BB official told the FE without elaborating.

The BB's latest move came against the backdrop of the rising trend of large-scale irregularities in purchasing and providing acceptance of bills against local LCs (letter of credit)-both foreign and local currencies-denominated-by different bank branches in the recent months.

The total number of overdue accepted bills in the banking sector stood at 7,260, involving around US$ 363 million (Tk 29.71 billion) as of June 30 last, according to the central bank statistics.

Earlier on September 13 last, the BB instructed the commercial banks to settle all overdue accepted bills amicably within the next 15 days to ensure discipline in the country's banking sector.

"We've already collected such information from some commercial banks," another BB official said replying to a query relating to the number of bank branches.

Hallmark Group, along with a few other business entities, has allegedly swindled funds worth Tk 35.47 billion from the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of Sonali Bank Limited.

Fifty-seven branches of 27 commercial banks played their part in the scam using the accommodation bill against back-to-back LCs ignoring banking rules and regulations, according to the central bankers.

News: The Daily Financial Express/Bangladesh/18-Sep-12