AB Bank Limited, one of the private sector commercial banks in the country, donated two haemodialysis machines to Dialysis and Kidney Transplantation Unit of BIRDEM Hospital Dhaka through its Foundation.

Kaiser A Chowdhury president and managing director of AB Bank Limited handed over the machines to head of the Dialysis and Kidney Transplantation unit Dr. Abul Mansur at a simple ceremony at BIRDEM on Saturday, said a press release. The donation was part of AB Bank’s on going Corporate Social Responsibility ( CSR ) initiatives.

BIRDEM, country’s one of the largest health research centre has identified that the Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is becoming aggressive as a public health problem now. Due to its costly treatment only 7 percent to 8 percent of the kidney patients can afford the expenses.

News: Daily Sun/Bangladesh/Apr-25-2011

National Bank Limited organised a function to distribute scholarship, certificate of appreciation and crest among the scholar awards of the employees of the bank and also National Bank Public School and College under NBL Employees Welfare Scheme.

The bank organised the function at the Bangabandhu Interna- tional Conference Centre in the city recently, said a press release.

A total of 127 students who secured outstanding result in the HSC, SSC, JSC and Primary Final examinations in 2010 were awarded with scholarship.

Moazzam Hossain, sponsor director of the bank attended the function as chief guest while Neaz Ahmed, managing director presided over the meeting. Md Badiul Alam, additional managing director delivered welcome address and A K M Shafiqur Rahman, deputy managing director and company secretary delivered vote of thanks on the occasion.

Among other, the meeting was attended by Capt. Abu Syeed Monir, director, S M Jaffar, Shamsul Huda Khan, Nazib Uddin Bhuiyan, A S M Bulbul and Abdul Hamid Mia deputy managing directors, Col Mokarram Ali Khan (Retd), Principal of National Bank Public School and College and senior executives, officers and staff of the bank and parents of scholar students.

National Bank Emplo- yees' Welfare Scheme was formed in 1997. Other than taking various initiatives for the welfare of the employees, it has introduced scholarship for the brilliant students of the employees with a view to inspire them to build up a competitive and bright career for them in future, said the press release.

News: Daily Sun/Bangladesh/Apr-25-2011

Brac Bank sees financial inclusion of five million people through its new mobile-banking business within the next five years.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder chairman of the bank and chairperson of Brac, said this at a courtesy visit to the bank on Sunday. He formally inaugurated the annex building of Brac Bank at the bank’s head office at Tejgaon in the city on Sunday, said a press release.

His visit coincided with the 10th anniversary of the bank, an institution he founded with the philosophy of serving small and medium entrepreneurs of the country.

Originally founded on a small three-storey premise, Brac Bank’s head office today has over 170,000 square feet area together with this new premise. About 2,000 employees work at different capacities at the head office, a force that has taken this youngest bank into being one of the top in the country, said the press release.

Addressing to bank employees, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed said that Brac Bank started as the first SME banking and now has become one of the largest private banks in the country with 1.2 million customers and whole array of financial solutions.

“We started with a vision of financial inclusion of the mass people. You will soon see a new mobile-banking business where customers can access their account through cell phone. Customers at the farthest end of the country will now be able to do banking. With this, we hope we will have inclusion of 5 million customers in next 5 years,” he said.

Sir Abed reiterated: “As a member of global alliance for banking on values, Brac Bank operates under a ‘Triple Bottom Line’ agenda – People, Planet and Profit. We serve people and planet and sustain reasonable profit. We are proud to have a dedicated workforce who contributed greatly for growth and development of this bank.” He said Brac Bank will have its own building very soon. Muhammad A (Rumee) Ali, chairman of Brac Bank along with Syed Mahbubur Rahman, managing director and CEO, Management Committee Members and other officials of the bank were present during Sir Abed’s visit.

News: Daily Sun/Bangladesh/Apr-25-2011

Prime Bank Limited (PBL) has received International Star for Leadership in Quality (ISLQ) award recently for its achievements in quality and excellence, said a press release.

Business Initiative Directions (BID) awarded PBL in gold category acknowledging its outstanding business achievements, perseverance, leadership and quality in accordance with the QC100 Total Quality Management Criteria. Managing Director of the bank M Ehsanul Haque received the award from Jose E Prieto, president and CEO of BID, in Paris, France on April 11.

The function styled ‘BID International Quality Convention Paris 2011’ also awarded 58 other companies around the world.

News: Daily Sun/ Bangladesh/ 23-Apr-2011

The prime minister has opened the much-awaited Prabashi Kalyan Bank (Expatriate Welfare Bank) to reduce migration cost for Bangladeshis.
“The bank will provide intending overseas migrant workers with collateral-free soft loan, and migrant workers with low-cost and easy remittance transfer services,” Sheikh Hasina said at a launch programme on Wednesday. She also handed out loan cheques to four people prospective emigrants while opening the bank at a Sonargaon Hotel function around 11:45am.
At the same programme, she also inaugurated the fourth ministerial consultations of Colombo Process, a series of regional consultative meetings on Asian contractual migrant workers.
“It is true that we have made significant progress on migrants’ issues, but we are still far from the ideal scenario of ‘Migration with Dignity’,” Hasina said.
Unethical practices were the major challenge as unscrupulous middlemen take the advantage of desperation of poor people to go overseas, she added.
“We formed an expert committee to identify cost determinants and find out what the maximum migration costs should be,” Hasina said.
She said it was important to go for combined efforts to help regulate and combat unethical recruitment process.
“Colombo Process could be used by labourers-sending and destination countries in sharing good practices,” she added.
The prime minister said the Libyan crisis had made it clear that an effective contingency planning and mechanism were needed to deal with such complex emergencies.
She hoped that the April 19-21 consultation meetings in Dhaka would come up with good recommendations to have viable institutionalised framework to respond to such emergencies. Over 35,000 Bangladeshi workers returned from Libya since the crisis began in the North African country in mid February.
Finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, foreign minister Dipu Moni, expatriates welfare minister Khandkar Mosharraf Hossain, Indonesian minister of manpower and transmigration Muhaimin Iskandar , expatriates welfare secretary Zafar Ahmed Khan and International Organisation for Migration director general William Lacy Swing also spoke on the occasion.
Expatriates welfare and overseas employment secretary Jafar Ahmed Khan earlier said the bank would offer loans at nine percent interest rate, much lower than the commercial banks.
With an initial paid-up capital of Tk 1 billion, the bank is for a working capital of Tk 4 billion. The government will provide Tk 5 billion of the paid-up capital, while the rest will come from Wage Earners Welfare Fund.
To pave the way for setting up the bank, a law was passed by parliament in October 2010.
The new bank will have its head office on ‘One Stop Service’ building at 70-71 Eskaton Road.
Until it is ready for use, the bank will continue its operation from Bangladesh-Korea Technical Training Centre at Darussalam Road, Mirpur.

News:  The Independent/ Bangladesh/ 21-Apr-2011