The judge-in-chamber of the appellate division Thursday issued an order for re-instating 11 directors of Social Islami Bank Ltd. in their posts. 

The High Court earlier Monday restricted functions of the SIBL directors for allegedly holding the offices for 16 years defying the law.

Thursday's order also directed to maintain status-quo, according to Md Ibrahim Khalil, advocate-on-record of Supreme Court.

The directors are -- Anisul Hoque (representative of Hamdard Lab), Abdul Awal Patwari, Sultan Mahmud Chowdhury, Nasir Uddin, Sheikh Md Rabban Ali, Sayeedur Rahman, Jabbar Mollah, Faisal Ahmed Patwari, Noor-A-Alam Chowdhury, Lily Amin and Md Azam.

The Daily Financial Express/Bangladesh/ 13th Jan 2012

Country’s public and private sector banks and non-bank financial institutes have received a total of US $ 249.83 million as remittance in the first week of the current month of January.

Among the private sector commercial banks, Islami Bank Bangladesh Ltd (IBBL) has received the highest amount of $ 73.35 million in the said period while four state owned commercial banks, Sonali, Agrani Janata and Rupali together have received $ 62.79 million.

Among the government-owned banks, Sonali received $ 17.64 million, Agrani $ 22.75 million, Janata $ 21.29 million and Rupali $ 1.11 million.

Among two government-owned specialised banks, Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) has received $ 2.29 million while Basic Bank received no remittance in the said period.

The received remittance of nine foreign banks amounted to $ 2.48 million while 30 private sector commercial banks have received US$ 181.64 million.

As per the account of the Foreign Exchange Policy Department of Bangladesh Bank, in 2010-11 fiscal year the country bagged a total of $11,950.31 million as remittance while the amount was $6065.46 million in July-December period of the current 2011-12 FY.

The Daily Sun/Bangladesh/ 13th Jan 2012

Bangladesh Bank (BB) yesterday for the first time released data on interest-rate spread to increase competition among banks and help consumers get services at a lower cost.

The interest-rate spread is the difference between lending and deposit rates. An increase in the spread means the banks gave lower interest rates to depositors but charged higher rates from loan seekers.

The bank interest rate spread increased in 2011, compared to 2010, which is one of the reasons behind hefty profits that banks made last year, according to data from the central bank.

“The inclusion of the bank interest rate information on our website is part of the Bangladesh Bank Open Data Initiative whose aim is to promote easily downloadable access to economic and financial sector data,” said Hassan Zaman, senior economic adviser to the central bank governor.

“This sort of data dissemination can strengthen consumer awareness and hopefully promote healthy competition in the banking sector,” he said.

“The BB step is good but it is not sufficient,” former BB governor Salehuddin Ahmed said.
The spread should remain below 5 percent. If the spread of any bank is higher than that, the central bank must intervene, Ahmed added.

In the Bangladesh context, opening up everything in the name of free-market economy will not be proper, he said.
The spread of all banks increased 0.07 percentage point to 5.23 percent on average in November 2011, compared to December 2010, central bank data showed.

The interest rate spread of many banks was above 6 percent, according to data on individual banks. The spread of most foreign banks is much higher.

Zaman said the high interest spread can be justified for some banks because they have a larger share of SME lending, but there are certainly scopes for some other banks to reduce the spread.

The spread of state-owned commercial banks was much lower about one and a half years ago but it has started to increase now. But it is still below 5 percent.

A high official of Agrani Bank said the state banks compete with private banks. As a result, they are forced to increase the interest on deposit and lending.

In 2011, many thought that Bank profits will be much lower due to a fall in their profits from the share market, but in reality both the public sector and private banks made good profits. Most of the banks made more profit in 2011, compared to 2010.

In addition to the high spread, the Banks made good profits from the foreign exchange market, Ahmed said. The commission charged by the Banks is much higher now.

The Banks normally give less interest to the depositors and charge more in case of lending, he said. BB will have to continuously monitor the situation so that the Banks do not give lower interest rates to the depositors and charge more form the borrowers.

Many bank officials said the central bank withdrew the lending cap recently, which will increase the lending rate in 2012. In addition, to collect deposits, the banks will embark upon stiff competition, pushing the deposit rate up.
The managing director of a private bank said the government has taken an initiative to allow a number of new private banks to be set up, which will further increase competition.

The Daily Star/Bangladesh/ 13th Jan 2012

Thevakumar Kandiah

Thevakumar Kandiah, country director of the Asian Development Bank, retired from ADB services yesterday.

Kandiah had a 35-year professional career in development banking, including more than 28 years at the ADB focusing on transport and energy infrastructure development, financing and implementation.

Kandiah joined ADB's Bangladesh Resident Mission as country director in May 2010, according to a statement.
“During the last 20 months, I interacted with stakeholders extensively, and learned about the country, its resilient and resourceful people, growth dynamism, and received valuable suggestions on how to make ADB's operations more effective,” Kandiah said in the statement.

“I am going home with fond memories.”
“During my tenure, I witnessed a dynamic and resilient Bangladesh progressing fast to attain the middle-income status by 2021,” he said.

“The country has attained a respectable 6.7 percent growth in gross domestic product in FY2011. Average GDP growth of 6 percent was achieved in the past decade, up from 4.8 percent in the 1990s,” he said.
“The achievements are significant despite daunting challenges.”

The Daily Star/Bangladesh/ 13th Jan 2012

One Bank Limited signed a master facility agreement under Investment Promotion and Financing Facility (IPFF) with Bangladesh Bank (BB) at BB’s head office on Wednesday, says a press release. Farman R Chowdhury, managing director of One Bank, and S K Sur Chowdhury, executive director of Bangladesh Bank, signed the agreement.

Johora Bebe, deputy managing director, Rozina Aliya Ahmed, senior executive vice president and head of marketing, Shabbir Ahmed, executive vice president and head of asset marketing, and Abu Saleh, vice president, syndication and structured finance unit, One Bank Limited, and Husne Ara Shikha, joint director and deputy project director, Goutam Kumar Ghosh, deputy director, IPFF Cell, Bangladesh Bank, and other officials of both organisations also attended the signing ceremony.

Government has taken the IPFF project to make available partial debt financing through private sector financial intermediaries for eligible, government-endorsed infrastructure projects, to be developed by the private sector. Projects developed solely by the private sector but identified by the government to be in the public interest will also be eligible to get financing under IPFF.  

Under the agreement, One Bank will enjoy financing facility from the World Bank, administered by Bangladesh Bank, for extending credit facilities to infrastructure projects.

The Daily Independent/Bangladesh/ 13th Jan 2012