National Bank Ltd (NBL) has inaugurated another branch at Gharishar in Shariatpur. It is their 138th branch. Chairman and sponsor director of NBL Zainul Haque Sikder formally launched the branch at a function recently. The inauguration programme was followed by a discussion meeting with the chair of Managing Director of the bank Neaz Ahmed.

Deputy managing director and company secretary of NBL AKM Shafiqur Rahman delivered welcome speech while Gharishar branch Manager Shahidur Rahman delivered vote of thanks. Directors of NBL Monowara Sikder, Lisa Fatema Haque, Parveen Haque Sikder and AKM Enamul Hoque Shameem were present at the occasion as special guest.

Additional managing director Badiul Alam, deputy managing director Shamsul Huda Khan and senior executive vice president Abdul Hamid Mia of the bank, local elites and businessmen were also present in the inaugural ceremony.

News Source: Daily Sun/19 Dec 2010

If someone goes to 840 Kazi Para, Rokeya Sharani, Mirpur, Dhaka-1216 s/he will see a 5 storied well decorated building tagged by "EXIM Bank Hospital". This building has been hired by EXIM Bank to set up a hospital dedicated for the welfare of the underprivileged people of the society. That is just a single example of EXIM Bank's charity. Exim bank puts aside at least 2% of their annual profit every year for the foundation to conduct Corporate Social Responsibilities(CSR) activities. The mainstream CSR activities that are carried out through this foundation are:

• Healthcare service
  
• Scholarship program for poor brilliant students
  
• Education Promotion Scheme(Interest free loan)
  
• Helping people affected by natural calamities
  
• Helping people who lives in slums
  
• Donation to educational institutions to setup computer lab
  
• Beautification of Dhaka City

Healthcare service: A 5 storied building having 10,000 sft floor space at 840 Kazi Para, Rokeya Sarani,Mirpur, Dhaka-1216 has been hired to set up Exim Bank Hospital. The decoration of this hospital is completed. A doctor has been recruited who is working as a resident director of the hospital. Other doctors and hospital staffs have been in the process of selection through recruitment notice already published in the national dailies.

Scholarship program: This is a stipend package for poor and meritorious students that takes care of the beneficiaries throughout their student life. EXIM Bank Scholarship Programme, launched in 2006 with 61 poor and meritorious students selected from different reputed educational institutions of Dhaka City including Govt. Laboratory High School, Viqarunnissa Noon School and College, Dhaka University, BUET, Dhaka Medical College, etc. enrolled as many as 1000 students from around 150 reputed educational institutions across the country by 31 December 2008. They are enrolled in the this programme to be taken care of for their whole educational life subject to their fulfillment of the eligibility criteria that include satisfactory academic results, non-involvement in student politics, financial insolvency etc. So far Tk. 19.3 million has been disbursed as scholarship under this programme.

Education Promotion Scheme(Interest free loan): Under Education Promotion Scheme, interest-free loan is provided for poor and meritorious students to help them bear monthly educational expenditure including academic expenses, food, accommodation, etc. The quard is disbursed to the selected students in monthly installments till their accomplishing the master degree. Under this programme the students are required to repay the amount (only the principal amount) in long-term monthly installments after they have joined a confirmed job accomplishing their education properly. By 31 December 2008, Tk. 19.7 million was sanctioned to take care of around 138 poor and meritorious students from a number of reputed educational institutions like Dhaka University, Chittagong University, Dhaka Medical College, BUET, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Shahjalal University of Science and Technology etc.

Helping people affected by natural calamities: Another vital area they are dealing with as a part of their CSR activities is helping people to survive natural calamities. Under this welfare programme, EXIM Bank provides relief in cash for flood, fire or cyclone victims and cold-stricken people. The aim of these CSR activities is to help the target group to overcome their provisional sufferings and contribute to the socio-economic growth as soon as possible.

Helping people in slum areas: Besides natural calamities, fire breaks out sometimes in slum areas that guts the shanties and renders the affected people totally helpless. In that situation, they help the victims fight against the hard days and return to normal life.

Donation to educational institutions to setup computer lab: Exim Bank has donated to Dhaka University and Chittagong University to set up two computer labs that will help the students of those universities to acquire ICT knowledge. This will certainly help the students to be ready to take the challenges of this competitive information technology based society.

Beautification of Dhaka City: In response to the call of the Dhaka City Corporation, EXIM Bank has been sharing a good portion of the mammoth task of beautifying the capital since 2005. To make the capital a modern city, enriched with adequate urban amenities, EXIM Bank always joins hands with the government.

In brief, EXIM Bank is greatly involved in the social welfares and that is helping our city and country to a great extent. Initiatives like this are welcome by the common people and they expect more Banks to be involved in such activities. If all the corporate organizations work together, they can build a better Bangladesh in near future. EXIM Bank can be a very good example for the others.

Reference:  

http://www.eximbankbd.com/index.php

Field Tour

Recently a Management Trainee Officer (MTO) that means a training course for trainee officers of NCC Bank Limited has finished in their training institute. It was a month long training. Managing Director of the bank Mr. Mohammad Nurul Amin was present in the closing ceremony of the course as a chief guest. He distributed certificates amongst the trainees.

Mr. Golam Hafiz, Additional Managing Director and Mr. A. K. Mo. Siddique, Pro-Managing Director of the Bank were present in the program as Chief Guest. T. M. Faruq, Senior Executive Vice President was present in the program as well. The principal of NCC Bank Training Institute Mr. Jogodish Chandra Debnath was the course coordinator.      

News Source; Prothom Alo/17 Dec 2010

Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited (DBBL) has recently signed a participatory deal with Bangladesh Bank to extend and expand the Re-Financing facility in SME sector. K.S. Tabrez, Managing Director of DBBL and Mr. Shukomol Singh Chowdhury, General Manager of SME and special program’s department, has signed the deal for their own organization.

This deal will cover the projects outside Dhaka and Chittagong metropolitan. These projects may come under re-financing facility only after fulfilling certain conditions and the perimeter of the financing will be from Tk.50,000 to Tk.70,00,000.

Executive Director of Bangladesh Bank Mr. Harunur Rashid Chowdhury, Asst. Managing Director of DBBL Mohammad Mosaddikur Rahman, Chief of SME sector Mohammad Abu Kawsar and many other senior officials from both organizations were present in this program.

Press Release: Prothom Alo/17 Dec 2010        

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) wants Bangladesh Bank (BB) to seriously address concerns with the commercial banks' over exposure to the stockmarket.

“We hope Bangladesh Bank will work diligently to ensure that banks and their subsidiaries take necessary action to mitigate the risks from stock market volatility,” said David Cowen, deputy division chief of IMF for Asia-Pacific and team leader of the visiting team.

An IMF mission visited Bangladesh on December 6-15 to discuss the overall macroeconomic situation under Article IV consultation and possible lending arrangements for $1 billion.

The IMF agreed to lend Bangladesh $1 billion under its Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme, provided its board approves in February.

The loan will be available on a concession (at less than 1 percent interest rate), but Bangladesh has to give IMF some formal commitments, such as fiscal reforms, monetary operations and moves to strengthen the financial sector.

The IMF team looks concerned with stockmarket volatility and the banks' over-involvement in it. Cowen said the banking sector, as a whole, needs risk-based supervision to ensure new capital adequacy requirements.

He said Bangladesh Bank (BB) as the regulator has issued a number of circulars, including setting the investment limit at 10 percent of a bank's liabilities, to reduce risk exposure of banks to the stockmarket.

“BB should closely monitor that all those regulations are being followed by the banks. If necessary, other action may be taken,” said the IMF team leader. The IMF also advised the central bank to continue work with the Securities and Exchange Commission in this regard.

On the cap imposed by BB on the bank lending rates, Cowen said, “We want removal of most of the caps and the banks should be allowed greater flexibility in setting the rates."

On Bangladesh's macroeconomic outlook, the IMF said the country will grow better in the current fiscal year because of improvements in garment exports and investment demand.
“Growth is expected to be slightly above 6 percent this fiscal year and inflation at an average of 7 percent on anticipated moderation of commodity price increases,” said Cowen in his written statement.

The IMF observed that the balance of payment (BOP) will be under pressure due to a significant increase in import payments for fuel, food and cotton. In addition, remittance is expected to fall on a year-on-year basis for the ongoing decline in migrant worker outflow, adding pressures on the BOP.

The budget deficit is also likely to increase by 0.75 percentage points of GDP to around 4 percent this year, it said.

Source: The Daily Star, Bangladesh/16th Dec 2010