Md Mahbubur Rahman Khan has been appointed as new independent director of National Bank Ltd recently, says a press release. Prior to this appointment, he was a board member of the same bank from 2003 to 2005.
Mahbubur Rahman is a director of Faridpur chamber of commerce and Industry and also a member of FBCCI and regional chairman of Lions Club. Rahman, managing director of Himalaya Trading Company (Pvt) Ltd, and Hotel Rifles Inn, has 30 years of experience in real estate and export import.

Most of the new banks have brought fund at higher cost while they provided loan at 7% to 8% rate of interest

All but one listed banks have announced dividends for 2013 in a mixed trend that failed to lift investor confidence in banking shares.
Of the 30 listed banks, 13 declared higher dividends than in the previous year, eight announced lower dividends, and eight the same, according to Dhaka Stock Exchange.
With the mixed trend in dividend declaration, the banking shares were unable to draw the investors' attention in the last couple of months, as corporate declarations from the sector could not fulfil retail investors' expectations.
Although the banking sector accounts for around 20 percent, the highest, of the total market capitalisation, the sector's turnover was around 10 percent in the last couple of months.
Fuel and power, pharmaceuticals, engineering and multinational sectors performed better than the banking sector during the period.
Dutch-Bangla Bank came up with the highest amount of dividends—40 percent cash—for its general shareholders. ICB Islamic Bank gave no dividends.
Although 2013 was a tough year for banks as business activities were hampered by political unrest, the central bank move of relaxing loan provisioning rules at the yearend helped them recover losses, a banker said.
Provision, essentially, is an expense for banks to account for future losses on loan defaults.

But Bangladesh Bank had asked lenders to reconsider loan rescheduling and down payments until June this year on a case-by-case basis for borrowers in all sectors affected by political instability.
With the BB move, the banks saw a big jump in their earnings in the fourth quarter compared to the previous three quarters.
“The dividends would have been much lower had the provisioning rules not been relaxed,” said Anis A Khan, managing director of Mutual Trust Bank.
He said the banks' income from lending business declined in 2013 than the previous year due mainly to the political volatility. “But we managed to maintain the growth in our balance sheet with income from investment in government treasury bonds, efficiency and cost effective measures,” he said.

The central bank plans to issue new corporate social responsibility (CSR) guidelines for the country’s financial institutions (FIs) with a view to expanding their benevolent activities effectively for advancing inclusive, environmentally sustainable socio-economic progress of the country. Bangladesh Bank (BB) will issue the new CSR guidelines for the financial and non-financial banking institutions very soon, said the central bank governor Dr Atiur Rahman while addressing the launching ceremony of ‘Report on CSR in Bangladesh 2014 Bangladesh’ at a city hotel, organised by CSR Centre.
The governor called upon the FIs to take more initiatives for social responsible financing taking into considers the global urgency.
“It is a global survival urgency in the face of looming risks from social inequity, environmental degradation, and climate change threats arising mostly from the global economic output practices”, said the governor.
The governor also instructed the banks and the non-bank financial institutions to strictly follow the environmental risk management guidelines of the central bank. The central bank is monitoring the risk management activities of the FIs on a regular basis, he also said.
It is very agreeable that every financial institutions in the country are maintaining their own CSR strategies under the instructions of the central bank”, said the governor. In December 2010, the central bank instructed the banks to establish separate CSR desk to play special attention to this issue, he said.
The CSR initiatives of banks and financial institutions have expanded several folds over the past few years, said the governor adding that the CSR expenditure by FIs stood at Tk 447 crore as against 50 crore in 2009, he also added.
The inaugural session was addressed among by CSR Centre chairperson Farooq Sobhan and the European Union Ambassador William Hanna.