The central bank has introduced a refinance loan scheme worth $50 million to encourage environment-friendly and automatic brick kilns in the country.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has given the fund to the Bangladesh Bank, said a circular issued by the BB recently.

All banks and non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) are eligible to get the fund from the central bank at 5 percent, while banks and non-banks would charge reasonable interest rates from their clients.

The BB also issued a guideline in this regard.

Of the total fund, $30 million will be disbursed to convert the existing fixed chimney kilns into the improved Zigzag kilns.

The remaining $20 million will be lent to new vertical shaft brick kilns, hybrid Hoffman kilns and tunnel kilns, said the circular.

A commercial bank or an NBFI can get maximum 50 percent of the total project costs from the BB's refinance fund and 20 percent from their own fund.

An entrepreneur must provide the rest 30 percent of the costs.

The repayment period of such loans will be five years, with six months' grace period.

The circular said a bank will have to take prior approvals from the ADB and the BB before disbursing more than $2 million loan for a project. A bank can lend up to $5 million for a single project, it said.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/19-Sep-12

Stocks returned to the black yesterday riding on investor optimism fuelled with renewed possibility of World Bank's loan revival for the Padma bridge.

DGEN, the benchmark General Index of Dhaka Stock Exchange, finished the day at 4,632.10 points, after surging 53.20 points or 1.89 percent.

Media reports on the one-month leave of Mashiur Rahman, the prime minister's economic affairs adviser, stroked investor sentiments positively as it demonstrated the government's intent to get the $1.2 billion loan from World Bank for Padma Bridge construction, LankaBangla Securities said.

“Investors' optimism about the Padma bridge financing helped the market to have a broad based rally,” stated IDLC Investments.

A strong liquidity inflow supported by optimistic buying by the investors pulled the market and helped it break above 4,600 points, it said.

“Cement rallied strongly at the news of possible breakthrough about the latest of World Bank financing,” the merchant bank said.

Turnover rose 14.49 percent to Tk 1,089 crore, compared to the previous day.

A total of 2.14 lakh trades were executed with 22.47 crore shares and mutual fund units changing hands.

Newly listed companies continued to dominate the top gainers list. Financial sector companies had corrections after posting gains.

Among all the major sectors, information technology rose 7 percent, followed by textile at 6.92 percent and cement by 4.54 percent. Banks closed in the red.

News: The Daily Star/Bangladesh/19-Sep-12

BRAC Bank Monday launched Internet Banking service that can be custom tailored for its corporate clients to enable them to effect wide array of transactions just by a click over Internet that will speed up business operations.

This is the first such service among private local banks in Bangladesh for corporate entities that facilitates payment services through fund transfer, bulk payment including salary disbursement, standing instruction set up within BRAC Bank network. BRAC Bank has plans to expand the service so that companies can send L/C requests. Once Bangladesh Electronic Fund Transfer Network (BEFTN) integration is up this payment services will be expanded for domestic transfers within banking group network.

With BRAC Bank Internet Banking, companies can set up automatic bill payments, initiate future dated transactions apart from getting account statement, transaction history and viewing pending and rejected transactions. In coming days, the companies will also view summary of outstanding L/Cs and Bills with amounts in preferred currency.

BRAC Bank Internet Banking is fully safe and secure as globally used technology of two factor authentication - OTP (One Time Password) is deployed that generates random passwords for each transaction.

Ms Nazneen Sultana, Deputy Governor, Bangladesh Bank, formally launched the service at a program at a city hotel in the city Monday. Mr Syed Mahbubur Rahman, Managing Director & CEO; Mr Mahmoodun Nabi Chowdhury, Head of Corporate Banking; and senior officials of BRAC Bank Limited attended the programme.

Mrs. Nazneen Sultana, Deputy Governor, Bangladesh Bank, lauded BRAC Bank for initiating the IT-enabled service for business entities for smooth and speedy business transactions.

Mr. Syed Mahbubur Rahman, Managing Director & CEO; BRAC Bank, said, "Corporate houses can now bank with us at anytime from any place. They do not need to wait for Sunday morning for cheque encashment to party. They can do it even on weekend's right from a computer at any place. It will definitely bring new dynamism to their business operations and productivity."

"As a tech-savvy bank, BRAC Bank always comes forward with new technology for smart and smooth services to the clients. This pioneering service shows our strong commitment to introduce modern banking services to cater to modern day needs of business entities," he continued.

News: The Daily Financial Express/Bangladesh/18-Sep-12

Siddique Islam

The central bank is collecting information on inland bill purchase (IBP) to find out the link of the bills with the Hallmark scam that involved the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of Sonali Bank Ltd, officials said Monday.

A total of 19 inspection teams of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) are now collecting information from 50 branches of 27 commercial banks located in the capital Dhaka and Narayanganj.

The inspectors have been asked to assess the value of the IBP linked with the Hallmark scam and identify the persons who were responsible for the financial scam.

The probe teams would also examine diligence of the bank officials concerned in purchasing the IBP Bangladesh Bank (BB) officials said, adding that the inspectors would have to collect the name of the bank branch or the person, who benefited finally.

A single-member team was assigned on September 13 last in this connection and it asked the probe teams to submit their reports to the general manager of the Department of Financial Integrity and Customer Services (DFICS) of the BB by September 18.

"We're collecting the information as part of our monitoring to assess authenticity as well as value of the IBP concerning the Hallmark scam," a senior BB official told the FE without elaborating.

The BB's latest move came against the backdrop of the rising trend of large-scale irregularities in purchasing and providing acceptance of bills against local LCs (letter of credit)-both foreign and local currencies-denominated-by different bank branches in the recent months.

The total number of overdue accepted bills in the banking sector stood at 7,260, involving around US$ 363 million (Tk 29.71 billion) as of June 30 last, according to the central bank statistics.

Earlier on September 13 last, the BB instructed the commercial banks to settle all overdue accepted bills amicably within the next 15 days to ensure discipline in the country's banking sector.

"We've already collected such information from some commercial banks," another BB official said replying to a query relating to the number of bank branches.

Hallmark Group, along with a few other business entities, has allegedly swindled funds worth Tk 35.47 billion from the Ruposhi Bangla Hotel branch of Sonali Bank Limited.

Fifty-seven branches of 27 commercial banks played their part in the scam using the accommodation bill against back-to-back LCs ignoring banking rules and regulations, according to the central bankers.

News: The Daily Financial Express/Bangladesh/18-Sep-12

Stocks edged lower Monday as late profit taking selling pressure cut early sharp gains.

The benchmark DSE General Index (DGEN), the market’s main gauge, closed at 4548.89 with a slight fall of 16.82 points, chipping away gains of 134.21 points seen in the previous session. The broader All Shares Price Index (DSI) lost 8.78 points or 0.22 per cent to 3857. But the DSE-20 Index comprising blue chips shares gained 9.82 points or 0.27 per cent to 3528.86.

Chittagong Stock Exchange Selective Categories Index, CSCX, was down 38.92 points to 8853.36.
Losers took a marginal lead over the winners as out of 276 issues traded, 108 closed positive, 154 negative and 14 remained unchanged.

The market started with high note, gaining more than 64 points. However, as the session progressed, sell pressure wiped out the early hour gain. The market paused on the day as investors were concentrated to profit booking and cautious movement.

Most profit booking took place on general insurance and financial institutions that shed 2.43 per cent and 2.13 per cent respectively.

Cement sector was the major exception with a rise of 4.48 per cent.

The market was a bit slower than the previous session as investors were on selling mood rather than buying. 
Turnover in value stood at Tk 9.51 billion, down 16 per cent from Sunday’s Tk 11.36 billion-- the second highest single day turnover since April 15 this year.

The state owned Titas Gas continued to top the turnover chart for the sixth straight sessions with shares worth Tk 520.27 million changed hands. The other turnover leaders were United Airways, RN Spinning, Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company, MI Cement, Unique Hotel, Jamuna Oil and National Bank.

Grameen Scheme One was the day’s top gainer posting a rise of 9.88 per cent followed by First Prime Mutual Fund, Bangas, HR Textile, DBH First Mutual Fund, BSRM Steel and Saiham Cotton.

The day’s worst losers included Islamic Finance, National Polymer, Unique Hotel, Delta Spinning and Takaful Insurance.

News: The Daily Independent/Bangladesh/18-Sep-12