Standard Bank Ltd has opened its 56th branch at Patuakhali recently.

Chairman of the Bank Kazi Akramuddin Ahmed inaugurated the branch at Sadar Road of the district town, said a press release.

S.A. Farooqui, managing director, Alauddin Al-Azad, deputy managing director of the bank and local business personalities were present on the occasion.

While speaking at the function, Kazi Akramuddin Ahmed said Standard Bank has been able to achieve steady growth maintaining high ethical standard of banking by extending modern and prompt banking facilities to its clients.

He also said the newly opened branch is directly connected with the centralized real-time on-line banking network as a result of which any client of Patuakhali will be able to transact with other branches of the bank located throughout the country.

Source: Daily Sun

DHAKA, DEC 22: Almost most half of the 25 institutions have so far formed separate entities in line with central bank and securities regulator order to be expired on December 31. The move was aimed at restructuring operations of brokerage and merchant banking firms to protect the interests of stock market investors.
The deadline was extended for the fifth time since March, with the regulators last deadline expiring on November 30.
 The Bangladesh Bank and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reset December 31 as the deadline to give banks, financial institutions and insurance companies involved in stock business more time to set up separate companies.
Institutions, including AB Bank, Prime Bank, Mutual Trust Bank, Islami Bank, Trust Bank, EXIM Bank, Janata Bank, Agrani Bank, Sonali Bank, Southeast Bank and Prime Finance and Investment Ltd, have so far separated their brokerage and merchant banking arms.
More than 25 institutions, most of them banks, are running a stock brokerage business in addition to their core business.
 “We extended the deadline several times for practical reasons. It’s time-consuming to get registration for opening a new business,” said an SEC official Wednesday.
A top official of the non-banking financial institutions (NBFIs), on condition of anonymity, said, “We welcome the move but it is a very tough job to form separate companies. We need more time.”
Mostly NBFIs had failed to form subsidiary companies within the deadline set by the regulator.
On October 16, the SEC, in its last directive, said, “If banks, NBFIs and insurers fail to comply by November 30, they will be barred from offering credit facilities to share market investors from December 01."
In December 2009, the SEC ordered them to separate their merchant banking and stock brokerage units from the core business by March 2010.
The official noted that the subsidiary companies would have to comply existing and new rules and regulations introduced by SEC to run their merchant banking business and stock dealing activities properly.

Source:The Independent

Bangladesh will enter a full-fledged mobile banking network within the next three months, and the shift will be implemented within a bank-led model, the central bank governor said yesterday.

"The upcoming mobile banking has to be led by the banks," Atiur Rahman said at a discussion at the National Press Club in Dhaka.

The model will ensure proper regulatory monitoring and transparency in the related transaction processes and help reach banking services to the grassroots, he said.

The discussion on 'financial inclusion and impact of ICT' was organised by NeoSTAR Alliance, an association of the students of American International University-Bangladesh.

"Already we have given licences to a number of banks towards that goal and a few banks have started their operations," the governor said.

He called upon the telecom operators to give the banks access to their USSD (unstructured supplementary service data) networks soon so both the sectors can communicate with each other.

"The telecom operators will be encouraged to form partnership with the banks under the mobile banking system but they themselves will not be the bankers," he added.

Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee for the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications Hasanul Haq Inu stressed reducing the bandwidth price to less than Tk 10,000 to easily bring the rural people under connectivity.

He also emphasised collaboration between banks, telecom companies, regulators and content developers to build a strong domestic ICT base.

President of the Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh Zakiul Islam proposed a 'hybrid model' for the upcoming mobile banking where 'both banks and mobile operators will have an equal role'.

Source: The Daily Star

NCC Bank Limited opened its 78th branch with online facility at Maijdee, Noakhali on Tuesday.

Vice Chairman of the bank Md Harunur Rashid MP formally inaugurated the branch as chief guest, said a press release.

Managing director and CEO of the bank Mohammed Nurul Amin presided over the function while directors Mostafizur Rahman and Md Humayun Kabir attended as special guests. Deputy managing director Swapan Kumar Das gave the vote of thanks.

Former lawmaker Fazle Elahi, chairman of Al-amin Group Anwar Mirza, Principal of Noakhali Government College Professor Md Amanat Ullah, senior executive vice president of the bank T M Faruque Chowdhury, local elites, businessmen and clients were also present on the occasion.

Atiur tells BIBM workshop

The Bangladesh Bank is mulling some incentives for the banks which would go for green financing and those would be considered as their corporate social responsibility (CSR), said the central bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman.

He also called upon the bankers to finance more in environment-friendly projects and go green in their in-house operations.

“Greening of mind first is a pre-requisite to green financing,” Atiur said while inaugurating a workshop for the bankers on “Policy and Strategy of Green Banking in Bangladesh” at Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM) auditorium in the capital yesterday.

According to CSR guidelines issued by the BB, financing to effluent treatment plants (ETP) has already been included to its as CSR, Governor told bankers who gathered for preparing a regulatory framework for green banking.

“We’re trying out a participatory monetary policy that would ensure financial inclusion like people’s access to finance and green banking is not out of that policy,” said Atiur.

For a faster and steady economic growth, the BB is emphasising on green banking approach for an eco-friendly and sustainable development, Atiur also said adding that the BB is relentlessly working for framing a strategic plan to that end.

This might not be a task for the central banks of developed countries, but these are very crucial for Bangladesh as BB’s main focus is on economic development, he further added.

“Our all activities ultimately tell upon our environment and the BB took some initiatives in this regard as it wants to minimise those environmental hazards,” he also said adding “We’re not only instructing the scheduled banks to introduce energy efficient technologies but we also established a solar panel at BB headquarters.”

“Automation is equally important for the banks in reducing paper uses for a greener environment,” he also told the bankers.

He suggested that banks should seriously keep in mind the environmental issues while financing to any industrial projects.

Former BB Governor and founding chairman of BIBM AKN Ahmed attended the function as special guest. Director of BIBM Ahsan Habib and BB executive director Md Jahangir Alam presented papers on green banking at the workshop presided over by BIBM director general Toufic Ahmad Choudhury.

Source: Daily Sun