Prime Bank Limited has received the Best Bank Award from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangladesh (ICAB) at a city hotel Monday.

The bank won the award on the basis of evaluation of the presented accounts and annual reports of the year 2011 in the private banking category, said a press release.

AMA Muhith, Minister of Finance, handed over a crest to Md Ehsan Khasru, Managing Director and CEO of the bank at the 12th ICAB National Award giving ceremony in Dhaka.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/3rd-Oct-12

Finance Minister AMA Muhith, hands over the 1st award of the ICAB to Dr Ahmed Al Kabir, Chairman of Rupali Bank, at the 12th ICAB National Awards ceremony in Dhaka Monday.

Rupali Bank Limited received the 1st prize of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Bangla- desh (ICAB) for preparing the best annual report for the year 2011.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith handed over the award to Dr Ahmed Al Kabir, Chairman of the bank at the 12th ICAB National Awards held at a hotel in Dhaka Monday.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/3rd-Oct-12

M Siddiqur Rahman has been transferred as deputy managing director of Sonali Bank, a banking division circular Tuesday said. Prior to his new assignment, Siddiqur was deputy managing director of Janata Bank.

Besides, Rupali Bank’s deputy managing director AK Asraf Uddin Khan was transferred as the DMD post of Janata Bank.

The Banking Division of the Finance Ministry Tuesday issued a circular regarding transfer of two DMDs.

Two DMDs of Sonali Bank Limited - Atiqur Rahman and Mainul Haq – were made officer-on-special duty (OSDs) on September 4 following the bank’s financial scandal in siphoning of around Tk 35.47 billion by the Hallmark Group. As a result, the posts of two DMD of Sonali bank were vacant for a month.

The managing director of the state-run bank last month requested the Banking Division Secretary Shafiqur Rahman Patwari to immediately appoint two DMDs.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/3rd-Oct-12

Leaders of the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) sector on Tuesday slammed the government for its decision to disburse the fund of a refinancing schemes for SMEs through private banks as they charge high interest on credit.

Though the government is giving the fund for refinancing at lower interest, they are charging higher interest in the name of operating charges, the entrepreneurs alleged.

“The government is handing over people’s money to the institutions of the riches,” the sector leaders said, pointing finger at the private banks.

The SME sector leaders were speaking at a discussion on the SME financing project, funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), at SME foundation’s office in the city. Under the Jica scheme, Bangladesh Bank (BB) earlier opened a Tk 4.5 billion fund to provide financing facilities to the country’s small and medium enterprises.

Under the two-step fund, provided by JICA, 39 banks and financial institutions (FIs) will be provided with re-finance or pre-finance for lending to SMEs. BB signed separate agreements with 39 participatory banks and FIs to this effect.

During the function, SME Foundation managing director Khurshid Alam repented that the central bank was not taking any effective measure to lower the interest rates.

“For disbursing the Jica’s loan, the government did not pick up state-owned banks. Because, state banks have been set aside for institutions like Hallmark,” remarked Raju Ahmed, president of Agro Processor Association.

Another SME sector leader Mosharraf Bhuiyan alleged that the private banks were charging 15 to 18 percent interest from small entrepreneurs after getting the fund from the central bank at an interest of five percent.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/3rd-Oct-12

Bangladesh Bank (BB) is opening a new branch in Mymensingh to strengthen its supervisory framework for the branches of state-owned and private commercial banks within Mymensingh and five other neighboring districts.

The new BB branch will supervise the banking activities in Mymensingh, Jamalpur, Netrokona, Sherpur, Tangail and Kishoreganj.

The central bank has been operating its supervision and monitoring activities in the aforesaid districts by sending teams from Dhaka, which is time consuming to acquire the real scenario of disbursement of farm-loans and SME credits by the commercial banks, sources said.

The BB finalised the decision of opening the new branch last month by obtaining approval of its board of directors.

The Mymensingh branch would start its operation with six departments including department of banking inspections, vigilance, off-site department, agriculture, SME and special services.

With the new branch, the number of BB’s branches would stand at 10. Existing BB branches are located at Motijheel and Sadarghat in Dhaka and one each in Sylhet, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Rangpur, Khulna, Bogra and Barisal.

Sources said BB Governor Atiur Rahman has already directed the bank’s human resource department to get new officials on board for meeting the additional manpower requirement after opening the new branch.

“Initially, the branch activities will be in a ‘limited form’ due to manpower shortage. Once the recruitment is completed, the branch will go into full-fledged operations,” said the source.

During a recent conference at BB headquarters, the governor asked the general managers of the central bank to accelerate supervisory activities on commercial banks to prevent Hallmark-like loan-forgery in future.

In the conference, general manager of Department of Banking Inspection (DBI-1) Dr Abul Kalam Azad presented a fresh policy guideline to sketch the supervisory plans afresh by adopting new paths.

News: The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/3rd-Oct-12