Mutual Trust Bank Ltd. (MTB) recently inaugurated its fifth Privilege Banking Centre at Agrabad Commercial Area in Chittagong, with an aim to providing better banking services to its expanding clientele base. The Agrabad Centre is the first MTB Privilege Banking Centre to be set up in the country’s premier port city. Md. Hedayetullah, Chairman of the MTB Board Executive Committee inaugurated the centre at a simple ceremony, held at its premises at Akhtaruzzaman Centre, Agrabad C/A, Chittagong. Al-Hajj Sufi Md. Mizanur Rahman, Chairman, PHP Group of Industries, Mahbubul Alam, President, Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industries, M. A. Salam, Proprietor of Salam and Company, Syed Ziad Rahman, a leading industrialist of Chittagong, MTB Managing Director & CEO, Anis A. Khan, Head of MTB Chittagong Division Branches, Md. Khurshed Ul Alam, Head of MTB Privilege Banking, Irfan Islam, prospective privilege customers, local elite and senior officials of the bank also attended the program. 

MTB currently has Privilege Centres in Gulshan, Banani, Tejgaon, Baridhara in Dhaka and Agrabad in Chittagong. The bank will soon be opening additional centres at Motijheel, Uttara and Panthapath in Dhaka.

BRAC Bank Limited in partnership with renowned international organizations and local banks have initiated a capacity building program for Bangladeshi bankers. 

The partners are FMO together with DEG, Proparco, OeEB, and UNEPFI and local banking partners – Eastern Bank Limited, Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited, IDLC Finance Limited and the City Bank Limited.

The aim of the ESROM Program is to support commercial banks/bankers in Bangladesh to build knowledge and capacity to address Environmental and Social (E&S) risks and opportunities and identify innovative and bankable green opportunities.

The Program will deliver six training sessions from August until November to approximately 150 relationship officers and credit analysts from the participating FIs on critical E&S issues in high-risk sectors as well as demonstrate how E&S opportunities can lead to business growth. This will be done through a set of transaction-based case studies from the commercial bank portfolios which clearly make the business case for sustainable finance and provide “Best-in-Class” examples of individual bank approaches to E&S risks and opportunities.

Both international and local partners have created this program over the past 8 months and are proud to have rolled out the first of 6 training sessions on the 30th of August. The ESROM Program is a strong example of how international and local banks are working hard to develop the E&S management capacity in the Bangladeshi banking sector - something that is completely in line with the Bangladesh Bank’s goals. 

The training sessions will be held in Dhaka at the Lakeshore Hotel and will be taking place on the following dates; August 30-31, September 2-3, October 4-5, October 7-8, November 8-9 and November 11-12. The first two sessions have been successfully completed and the benefits are evident. While we look forward for the remaining ones we earnestly believe to have affirmative outcomes out of this endeavor from our end.

The central bank has allowed online payment of visa processing fees through international credit card (ICC) as per the requirement of concerned embassies and high commissions.

“ICC issuing banks may also issue virtual cards for individuals not holding ICCs to facilitate the online payment of visa processing fees,” according to a circular issued by the foreign exchange policy department of Bangladesh Bank yesterday.

The banking regulator asked the banks concerned to bring the content of the circular to the notice of all parties involved.

Md Abdul Wadud has been appointed deputy managing director of City Bank, the bank said in a statement yesterday.

He served as senior executive vice president and head of credit risk management prior to the promotion, it said.  He is also in charge of the bank's special asset management department.

Wadud began his career as a management trainee with Eastern Bank.

The different government agencies disagree with the World Bank's reform proposal, which has now created a new hurdle to getting the $500 million budget support from the multilateral lender.

Budget support is a form of aid that is channelled directly into a country's budget on the condition that its government implements a number of reforms.

It was mainly the agencies in the power and energy sectors that differed with the WB, said a finance ministry official. Besides, the authorities have difference of opinion about some macroeconomic issues and guidelines about economic zones.

The differences were raised in a meeting yesterday between Finance Minister AMA Muhith and the visiting World Bank Vice-President for the South Asia Region Annette Dixon.

The government plans to go ahead with the proposed reforms but would do that differently from the WB's suggestions, Muhith told reporters after the meeting.

“Some compromise has to be made here -- it will be made somewhere.”

The finance minister said detailed discussions on the matter will be held at the annual meeting of the WB and International Monetary Fund, due to be held next month at Peru.

“We have agreed to continue the discussions in Lima. We very much look forward to reaching an agreement with the Bangladesh government,” Dixon said.

The WB reform proposals are mostly to do with price adjustments.

The Washington-based multilateral lender wants a pricing formula in place that would link both the petroleum and electricity prices with the production costs.

It wants the fuel price to be lowered now such that it becomes easier for the government later on to introduce the automatic pricing formula.

Muhith said the government has no plans to lower the price in the near future.

While the fuel price on the international market has come down to $49 per barrel, the government has fixed the current fuel price using $30 per barrel as the base price.

“It's already low. There is no room to lower the prices,” Muhith said.

The WB is happy with the hiking of the electricity prices by the government.

The finance ministry official said the WB also suggested corporatisation of several power sector distribution companies and introduction of power load dispatch mechanism for purchasing to reduce government costs.

It means during off-peak times, the concerned agencies will buy electricity giving first priority to the low-cost power producers. Then they will gradually purchase from high-cost power producers.

Another reform proposal made by the WB is making the rate of interest on savings instruments market-based. This means it will be consistent with the interest rate on the bank deposits.