Janata Bank has finally withdrawn the chief executive officer of its UAE operations on charges of fraud worth nearly $1.3 million.

Shafiqul Islam, the Bank's CEO in the United Arab Emirates, has been withdrawn and asked to report to the Bank's head office in Dhaka on September 1, a senior official said yesterday.

“Ismail Hossain has been appointed as the new CEO to look after the Bank's UAE operations,” said SM Aminur Rahman, managing director of the bank.

The removal and new appointment came at a time when a three-member team headed by a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank is in the UAE to further investigate the fraud related to opening of an LC (letter of credit) in 2010.

State-owned Janata Bank is one of the largest banks in Bangladesh with a network of 860 branches. It has four overseas branches, all in the UAE. The branches are located in Abu Dhabi, Al-Ain, Sharjah and Dubai.

Janata Bank appointed a CEO and branch managers to look after the branches in the UAE.

During a bi-annual inspection in 2011, the central bank detected gross irregularities in the operations of Janata Bank's Dubai branch.

The investigation found that the Bank's Dubai branch opened an unapproved LC worth around $1.30 million (Tk10.54 crore) for M/S Steven Frost LLC, which the bank could not recover.

Later, the central bank wrote to Janata Bank to take action against Shafiqul Islam along with Abdul Momen, manager of Dubai branch, and Mohammad Shahbuddin, an officer at the same branch.

But the Bank failed to take action against any of the officials charged with the irregularities. The finance ministry also asked Janata to punish the officials.

“We cannot take action keeping the CEO there,” said Rahman. “There was a possibility of damage to our business reputation,” he said.

“Now the CEO is withdrawn and we will go for action against him,” said the Janata Bank boss.

News: Daily Star/Bangladesh/27-Aug-12

  Bangladesh Bank (BB) has directed all of its branch offices to launch online services for core banking activities such as clearing cheques and re-financing services to banks.

The software has already been introduced by the central bank.

Punitive actions will be taken if any branch could not go online from August 26, BB governor Dr Atiur Rahman told reporters Thursday.

The BB also directed its branch offices to send statements of transactions to the central bank through the software namely 'Automated Banking Application Package'.

An official order, issued Thursday, asked the official in-charge of branch offices to initiate necessary measures to apply the software.

Earlier in Thursday morning, BB governor Dr Atiur Rahman sat in a tele-conference with the branch officials and inquired about their preparations to start applying of the software.

"BB's automation initiative is aimed at helping banks to provide faster and efficient services to clients," Dr Rahman told reporters.

He said the BB is gradually moving to shift the banking services to online from existing manual systems. "I hope, we could introduce completely 'paperless banking'," he said.

The governor said all eight branches of the central bank in Barisal, Khulna, Chittagong, Sylhet, Rajshahi, Bogra, Motijheel and Sadarghat were given directives to abide by the latest order.

News: Daily Sun/Bangladesh/24-Aug-12

Bangladesh Bank (BB) Sunday specified the titles of bank accounts for collection of donations for construction of Padma Bridge.

In a circular, the Banking Regulation and Policy Department (BRPD) has issued the instructing all scheduled bank branches to open a Collection Account titled “Voluntary Donation for Construction of the Padma Bridge (Resident)” to collect endowment in local currency.

And, the foreign or Authorised Dealer (AD) branches of all scheduled banks will open a Collection Account titled “Voluntary Donation for Construction of the Padma Bridge (Non-Resident)” to collect endowment in foreign currency from non-resident Bangladeshis.

Last week, the central bank issued a principal circular detailing directive for banks on opening the bank accounts for collection of donations for the bridge project.

The Sunday’s circular reads that all banks will provide this service without any service charge for the public interest.

All funds in local and foreign currency collected through the scheduled banks including Sonali Bank Ltd will be deposited to local office of Sonali Bank Ltd.

Local Office of Sonali Bank Ltd will open and maintain two bank accounts titled “Voluntary Donation for Construction of the Padma Bridge (Resident)” for local currency deposit and “Voluntary Donation for Construction of the Padma Bridge (Non-Resident)” for foreign currency deposit.

Sonali Bank will transfer the deposited endowment of those accounts in due process regularly to two different codes allotted by the government under Government Account No 1 maintained with Bangladesh Bank, the circular reads.

Non-residents may remit endowment to the AD branch of any scheduled bank through

any overseas bank or exchange house operated abroad. If any non-resident wants to donate in Bangladeshi Taka, then he or she may deposit to the Resident Account.

The local, principal or head office of the banks will consolidate their collections in those accounts at branch level and deposit and transfer the total fund to the concerned account in local office of Sonali Bank Ltd within the next week following the end of each month, the circular reads.

To ensure proper monitoring, each bank will submit a monthly statement on the

Deposited and transferred fund to the concerned account in local office of Sonali Bank Ltd to Banking Regulation and Policy Department and a copy to Executive Director of the Bangladesh Bridge Authority.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/  13th Aug 2012

Bangladesh Bank (BB) will release new notes of Tk 20 denomination from today.

The new Tk 20-note imprinted with Banga-bandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman will be released today from Bangladesh Bank’s Motijheel central office, said a press release.

Later, the note will be available in all other branches of the Bangladesh Bank and the scheduled banks.

The new note is being released to evade confusion between the current Tk 20 and Tk 500 notes as there are some similarities in colour and sizes among the two different notes.

With the portrait of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on one side the new Tk 20-note will be imprinted with a drawing of Shatgambuz Masjid of Bagerhat on the other side.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/  8th Aug 2012

The Bangladesh bank (BB) has asked all banks to remain open on August 18 (Saturday) to facilitate trade and commerce.

The department of offsite supervision of the central bank issued a circular in this effect on Monday.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/  7th Aug 2012