Vehicle protection provider company FINDER (a concern of Monico Limited) and Standard Chartered Bank and  have signed an agreement through which the Credit Card holders of the Bank will enjoy special InstaBuys @ 0% offers at FINDER. FINDER works as an intelligent watchdog for any personal or commercial vehicle. No matter where the vehicle is, with FINDER customer can trace it, track it and even trail it through internet & mobile phone.

FINDER provides with the real time tracking & monitoring via web, engine on/off through SMS, route & destination view via the web applications, distance monitoring, speed/distance report, location report, start/stop report and many more. This service will surely be a very effective one for the investors and will provide more security to the banks.

News Source:Financial Express/Bangladesh/20 Jan 2011

Standard Bank recently come up with their intention to open a new exchange house in New York aiming to grab the remittance business. This bank has already become one of the leading commercial banks in Bangladesh and hence extending their network worldwide. S A Farooqui, Managing Director and CEO of Standard Bank said, "We are set to launch our remittance business operation in the top city of the world very soon." on Thursday in an interview. He said Bangladesh Bank has already given necessary permission in this regard and the bank is waiting for the final approval from the US side.

This will be a subsidiary exchange company of the bank in U S A. As a result, Bangladeshi expatriates will be able to remit their earnings easily under proper banking channel. The bank has also plans to open Exchange Houses in Spain and Australia in near future subject to the regulatory permission. "We opened 'Standard Exchange Co (UK) Ltd' on August 20, 2009 in London and we received BDT 1 billion remittance from UK through the new company," the Standard Bank chief said. Standard Bank started its commercial operation on June 3, 1999.

Standarar Bank is in operation with their 58 branches, and 10 more branches will be open this year, of which 8 will be urban and two will be rural. "During my tenure, the bank under the strong support from its board of directors and Bangladesh Bank as well experienced sustainable growth in all areas of business," Mr Farooqui said. According to the latest un-audited report, the bank achieved laudable growth in all areas of operation including raising capital, asset, deposit, advances, international business and profit. The Bank clocked significant growth in its business areas in the outgoing year. The Bank achieved around 90 per cent growth in operating profit, 48 per cent growth in deposit and 42 per cent growth in advance in 2010. "We always put thrust on developing the rural economy through disbursing loan to SME and agri-business and in testimony to our mission, we financed flower cultivation in Jessore," the Standard Bank chief added.

In line with the Bangladesh Bank thrust, the Standard Bank launched few projects to mitigate poverty which includes crop loan, live stock & poultry loan, fishery loan, agriculture machinery and equipment loan, poverty elevation scheme and crop mortgage loan. "We have so far selected two villages as 'adarsha village' (ideal village) aiming to make the villagers poverty-free through disbursing agriculture and rural credits," the Standard Bank chief executive said. The villages are Kurpala under Kotalipara upazila and Tungipara under Tungipara upazila.

Mr S A Farooqui, a senior banker began his career in 1973. Prior to join the Standard Bank as EVP in April of 1999, he worked in National Bank and Agrani Bank. He was promoted as the MD of Standard Bank on September 30, 2008.

News: Financial Express/Bangladesh/16 Jan 2011

Banks of Bangladesh will introduce an electronic fund transfer system on February 24 to speed up transactions and payment, the central bank said yesterday. The system will be introduced under the central bank's automated clearinghouse project. With the automation, the corporate entities will be able to make faster payment of salaries to employees and make refund warrants in the case of initial public offerings and company dividends.

It will also take remittance and various government allowances such as those for freedom fighters, widows and elderly, easily to the beneficiaries. People will also be able to use the system to pay utility bills quickly. The decision was taken at a meeting of chief executives of all commercial banks at the central bank premises. Governor Atiur Rahman presided over the meeting.

Bangladesh Bank launched the automated system for settlement of paper cheques on October 7 last year. The meeting also decided to settle high-value cheques -- Tk 5 lakh or more -- from January 31 at 1,200 bank branches in Dhaka region. Besides, all cheques in Sylhet region will come under automated clearing system from January 20 and the Chittagong region from February 3. BB chief urged the banks to take technical preparations for the sake of modernising the payment system. He underscored cooperation among banks.

Rahman directed state-run banks to take special steps quickly to this effect to survive in the competition.

News: The Daily Star Bangladesh/05 Jan 2011

Speakers at a seminar here today underscored the need for speedy implementation of mobile banking service across the country for the greater interest of bringing rural people under the banking facilities.
With the introduction of mobile banking service, they said, people of all strata, including rural people, who are deprived of banking facilities, would get such facilities very easily as there are 66 million Cellphone subscribers in the country. It would also help implement the present government’s vision to build Digital Bangladesh by 2021, the speakers added.
The seminar titled ‘Digital Bangladesh and the Role of Mobile Banking’ was arranged as part of the nine-day Digital ICT Fair, being held at Multiplan Computer City at Elephant Road.
General Manager (IT and Billing) of Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd Md Habibur Rahman Khan attended the seminar as the chief guest, while former president of Bangladesh Computer Samity and IT consultant of Eastern Bank Ltd Omar Faruq Khandakar was present as special guest. With Convenor of the fair Towfique Ehsan in the chair, the keynote paper was presented at the seminar by Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of Pragati Systems Dr Shahadat Ullah Khan.
Convenor of the Event and Seminar Committee Engineer Subrata  Sarkar was the moderator of the seminar.
It was also attended by branch mangers and IT officials of different banks in the city.

Source: The Independent/ Bangladesh/ Jan-04-2011

Dhaka, Dec 20: BRAC Bank Ltd. (BBL) on Sunday launched Bangladesh's first e-commerce banking platform in alliance with Visa, thereby opening an opportunity for Bangladeshi citizens to use Visa cards for shopping online. Any Bangladeshi with internet access now can shop online with a Visa card or any card issued by BRAC Bank. Attending as the chief guest, Dr. Atiur Rahman, Governor of Bangladesh Bank, inaugurated the country’s first e-commerce banking system at a city hotel on Sunday.

Md. A. (Rumee) Ali, Chairman of BBL, Syed Mahbubur Rahman, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of BBL and Uttam Nayak, Group Country Manager (India and South Asia) of Visa were present along with senior officials, leading merchants and clients.

“The central bank has continuously been facilitating bringing banking to the doorsteps of the general mass. This online shopping is another milestone in that journey. I am happy to inaugurate this service brought first time in Bangladesh and that too by a Bangladeshi bank,” the Banglaesh Bank Governor said.

Md. A. (Rumee) Ali, said, “I think this will pave the way for many companies to start doing business online. This hopefully will be the start of online business revolution for Bangladeshi companies enabling them to keep up with the rest of the world and innovate how they interact with their customers.”

Uttam Nayak in his speech said that e-commerce would not only reduce cost of transaction but also save couple of hours rather than shopping physically.

E-commerce facilitates remote payments which are better than face-to-face payments, he said and adding it will give an opportunity to include more people in banking transaction, one’s who buying goods and other’s who selling goods. Firoz Ahmed Khan, Head of Retail Banking, while demonstrating the new service features at the launching ceremony said that the new shopping platform would work just any other developed online stores work.

Consumers can browse and choose their products on either the online super-stores or individual shops and then they can add the products to their cards through checking out finally, they simply need to put their details from BBL or Visa card. Online ticket booking with ones credit card and general retail purchases online have been something many credit card holders have been waiting to be able to do for years while many working Bangladeshis facing problems as the shops are normally closed at 8 pm., he said.

BRAC Bank online shopping is open for 24 hours making it possible for retail products, companies and stores to keep earning long after shopping hours are over, he added.

Source:The Independent