Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman has been honoured with the Central Bank Governor of the Year-Asia Pacific, 2015 award by the Banker magazine.

The Banker magazine is owned by London-based Financial Times. Brian Caplen, chief editor of the Banker, presented the award at a ceremony in the House of Lords on Friday.

Rahman was given the award for his contribution to promoting socially and environmentally responsible financing in Bangladesh without compromising macroeconomic stability, BB said in a press release quoting The Banker.

“Rahman, through his pioneering work, has managed to include farmers in the formal financial system, who previously had limited or no access to the financial market,” said Lord Mohamed Sheikh who chaired the award ceremony. Sheikh also applauded the gains made by the Bangladesh economy where Governor Rahman played a strategic role.                                                         

“What impressed the editors with Rahman's performance was not only what we expect from a central bank governor such as controlling inflation and ensuring stable economic conditions, but also his unique and interesting ideas which contributed to social good in Bangladesh,” Caplen said.

Rushanara Ali, a Bangladesh-origin British lawmaker, and Md Abdul Hannan, Bangladesh's high commissioner to the UK, also spoke on the occasion.

In November last year, Rahman received the 'GUSI Peace Prize International 2014' in recognition of his work in establishing peace by reducing poverty in Bangladesh.

Default loans in the four state-owned banks dropped 12.77 percent in 2014 from a year ago on the back of a strong recovery drive.

On December 31 last year, the default loans of Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali collectively stood at Tk 16,599 crore. On an individual level too, the default loans declined in all four banks.

Besides cash recovery drives, wholesale rescheduling and write-offs also helped in bringing down the bad loans in the four banks, said an official of Sonali, the largest state bank.

Sonali, whose bad loans dropped 20.25 percent last year, gave all its branches targets for recovery and business development at the beginning of 2014, which were then monitored during the course of the year, said its Managing Director Pradip Kumar Dutta.

Subsequently, the bank counted profits of Tk 855 crore last year, which is more than a three-fold increase over previous year. In 2013, Sonali's profits stood at Tk 257 crore.

However, Sonali also wrote off around Tk 2,000 crore in 2014, which was another reason for the fall in its default loans.

Agrani Bank also recovered a handsome amount of loans last year: it made cash recovery of Tk 445 crore and around Tk 40 crore from the written-off loans. As a result, its profits increased 8.40 percent last year from the previous year.

An official of Janata Bank said in 2014 they made cash recovery of Tk 734 crore from classified loans and Tk 151 crore from written-off loans. Janata's profits though dropped 13.12 percent year-on-year to Tk 1,053 crore.

Meanwhile, Banking Secretary M Aslam Alam at a press briefing yesterday said besides classified loans, the overall loan situation of the banking sector has improved much.

Bangladesh Bank yesterday asked all banks and financial institutions to set up separate units at their head offices to serve women entrepreneurs effectively.

The banks face a 15-day deadline to form the new units, according to a notice issued by the central bank.

The BB advised the banks and financial institutions to deploy women officials at these units on a priority basis.

The central bank has taken lots of initiatives since 2010 to develop small businesses and women entrepreneurship in

the country. It created a separate department, SME and Special Programmes Department.

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) interrogated five officials of Janata Bank Limited about Ananda Shipyard’s loan scam of Tk 1,300 crore.
A team led-by Deputy Director Mir Zainul Abedin Shibli of ACC started interrogation from 11:00am Thursday in ACC headquarters in city’s Segun Bagicha area. 

The bank officials are ex-GM M Nuruzzaman, ex-DGM M Nazrul Islam, former AGM M Afzal Hossain, ex-first AGM and also manager (ICD) Shamsunnahar Begum and FAGM M Enamul Haque.
The ACC claimed that Ananda Shipyard embezzled Tk 1,300 crore from 12 banks and finance companies in name of ship export showing fake documents,.