Pubali Bank Limited (PBL) sponsored an art competition for the children organised by Potua Kamrul Hasan Art School at the National Museum recently.

The competition titled “Pubali Bank Ekushey Children Art Competition” was arranged on the occasion of the international mother language day, said a press release.

Land minister Md Rezaul Karim Hira, MP awarded prizes as a chief guest among the winners.

Md Moshlehuddin, ex-secretary and Helal Ahmed Chowdhury, managing director of Pubali Bank Limited were present as special guests.

News: Daily Sun/  Bangladesh/Mar-09-2011

NCC Bank Training Institute arranged a month-long foundation training course for the officers of NCC Bank.

Golam Hafiz Ahmed, additional managing director of the bank inaugurated the course as chief guest at the training institute of the bank in the city recently, said a press release.

Deputy managing director TM Faruque Chow-dhury was also present as special guest. Principal of the Training Institute Jagadish Chandra Debnath coordinated the training.

News: Daily Sun/  Bangladesh/Mar-09-2011

Square Informatix, a leading VSAT firm that provides data communication and internet services allover the country has come to an agreement with Al-Arafah Islami Bank to serve their online banking connectivity requirements.

Squadron Leader Ahmed U Bhuyian, General Manager of Square InformatiX and SVP and Head of IT Masudul Bari of Al Arafa Islamic Bank, on behalf of respective companies, signed the agreement at the head office of Square Informatix recently, said a press release.

Ehsanul Aziz, deputy managing director, Khaled, AVP and Shahid of Al-arafah Islami Bank and Mufti Mamun Khan, Assistant Manager, Iftekhar Ahmed, head of marketing, Sk Shahin Rahman of Square Informatix Ltd were present.

News: Daily Sun/  Bangladesh/Mar-09-2011

Prof Muhammad Yunus distributes microloans in his early days. Microfinance has been an effective tool of social inclusion for the poor over the last 30 years. Photo: Yunus Centre

More than 64 crore people in the world benefitted from microloans in 2009, an all-time high, according to a report released by the Microcredit Summit Campaign yesterday.

The loans to about 13 crore poorest families -- five persons per family on average -- positively affected some 64.1 crore people, which is greater than the combined population of the European Union and Russia.

"Microcredit has very effectively lifted millions of poor women and their families out of poverty," said Melanne Verveer, US Ambassador at large for Global Women's Issues.

"With the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day being celebrated on March 8, it is gratifying to see that over 81 percent of the very poor who received microloans were women -- that is more than 100 million people."

She said women entrepreneurs are one of the smartest investments in microfinance. Not only have they shown strong returns in the success of their businesses, they consistently have demonstrated high loan-repayment rates and they re-invest in their families and their communities.

In the 12 years since the Campaign's founding, the number of very poor families with microloans has grown more than 16-fold from 76 lakh in 1997.

The report includes data from over 3,500 institutions with more than 93 percent of the information collected last year and verified by a third party.

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, founder of Brac, the world's largest nongovernmental organisation, said microfinance is the most exciting thing that has happened to poor people over the last 30 years in terms of social inclusion.

"By ensuring financial inclusion we have worked with the poor in a way that honours their dignity, and we have shown that poverty alleviation needs a multi-pronged approach," he said, according to a statement.

He said there is a lot of greed infiltrating microfinance. "A lot of people wish to make a lot of money out of it, and that worries me."

"Although I understand the rationale when return on investment is high, more money will flow into the sector, but people should not take advantage of it and make money out of poverty."

He also stressed that the sector needs to address the issue of over indebtedness that may be affecting some segments of the borrowers and not lose sight of its development focus.

Nobel laureate and Microcredit Summit Campaign co-founder Prof Muhammad Yunus hopes microfinance institutions would remain committed to their mission of helping the poor by charging low interests and that appropriate laws will be adopted for MFIs to enable them to attract and accept local deposits and lend out those deposits rather than seeking loan funds from commercial investors.

Larry Reed, the report's author and former CEO of the Opportunity International Network, said microfinance is more than just credit for micro-entrepreneurs.

"Some of the most compelling impact data is coming from savings programmes for the poor and very poor, and there is a lot of promise in outreach to rural areas, including agriculture finance and insurance, especially when integrated with other development efforts."

This comes at a time when the industry itself is facing its one of the most turbulent periods in recent memories across the world including Bangladesh, its birthplace. The microcredit pioneer, Prof Yunus, is fighting in court the government's attempts to remove him from Grameen Bank he founded three decades ago.

The Microcredit Summit Campaign aims to reach 17.5 crore of the world's poorest families by 2015 and ensure that 10 crore of those families move above the World Bank's $1.25-a-day poverty threshold.

Launched in 1997, the Campaign is a project of RESULTS Educational Fund, a US-based advocacy organisation committed to creating the will to eliminate poverty.

It has surpassed its goal of reaching 10 crore million poorest families with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services.

The next Global Microcredit Summit will be held on November 14-17, 2011 in Valladolid, Spain.

News: The Daily Star/  Bangladesh/Mar-08-2011

Bangladesh Bank will pump dollars into the state-owned commercial banks to assist country’s foreign trades in opening letter of credits (LC), BB sources said.

BB took the decision in a bid to address the prevailing dollar crisis that is hindering country’s export and import business. There is an allegation from the concerned people that banks are not assisting businessmen in opening LCs for the crunch of the greenback.

BB officials said, the declining flow of remittance, coupled with the imbalanced volume of imports compared with that of export in last six months, contributed to the dollar crisis.

Sources said, seven banks, including the four state-owned ones, exceeded the limit of dollar reserve. The banks are Agrani, Janata, Rupali, Sonali, Exim, Jamuna and Markentile.

Earlier, the BB issued show cause notices to eight banks for crossing the reserve limit.

According to the foreign exchange reserve policy, the foreign currency reserve limit is 15 percent. In crisis moments, banks are allowed to purchase dollar from other banks. But recently, banks are violating the policy fearing that they might not be able to purchase dollar from other banks.

News: Daily Sun/  Bangladesh/Mar-08-2011