M Reazul Karim has recently been promoted the additional managing director of Prime Bank with effect from January 1, the bank said in a statement.

Prior to the appointment, he was the deputy managing director of the Bank. Karim started his career as a probationary officer of National Bank in 1984.

An accounting postgraduate from Dhaka University, Karim joined Prime Bank in 1995.

The Daily Star/Bangladesh/ 12th Jan 2012

Nuzhat Anwar has recently been appo-inted the head of financial institutions of Citibank, NA, Bangladesh, the bank said in a statement yesterday.

Nuzhat will be responsible for managing the bank's relationships with other bank and non-bank institutions.

Prior to the appointment, she was serving the bank as the head of product treasury and trade solutions.

A postgraduate in finance from Dhaka University and an executive degree holder from Indian Institute of Management Kolkata, India, she joined Citibank Bangladesh in 1999.

The Daily Star/Bangladesh/ 12th Jan 2012

The Bangladesh Bank (BB) expects the soaring inflation will be stable in the coming months and come down to single-digit in the last quarter (Q4) of current financial year.

The central bank in a working paper, submitted to the parliamentary standing committee on the finance on Monday, said the inflation would start declining in the last quarter of 2011-12 fiscal year unless any domestic or external causes outclass the prospect.

"The stable and downtrend in global commodity prices will have similar impact on domestic market," BB said, hoping the trend would simmer off the rising inflation.

The central bank said the inflation had been on the rise since 2009 and hovering over 10 percent in recent months, making days uncomfortable for "fixed income group" people.

The money market regulator, however, said it would continue its efforts to bring down the inflation in line with the government's steps to control the spiralling prices of commodities.

The BB said it would continue using various tools, including repo and reverse repo rates, bank rates and buying or selling dollars, to maintain comfortable money supply to the market, which would eventually stabilise the inflation.
The banking regulator is following a monetary policy to help increase money supply to the productive sector to create more avenues for maintaining the steady supply of goods and services, which will stabilise the domestic demands and thus the inflation.

Referring to the reducing subsidy to fuel oil, power and fertilisers to ease financial burden on the government, the BB said non-food inflation would not come down "until the government completes the necessary process to lower the burden of subsidy".

The non-food inflation was 11.38 percent in December.
"The depreciation of taka against dollar also created pressure on consumer price inflation by making import costlier," the central bank said, but it observed that the depreciation also paved the way for bringing balance in exchange rate by encouraging more remittances and accelerating export growth.

The central bank said it had already withdrawn the ceiling on bank rates, which would reduce fund flow to the market by making credit costlier for many sectors.

"The high interest and limited access to liquidity will soon stabilise the exchange rate and the reserves," the BB said.

The Daily Star/Bangladesh/ 11th Jan 2012

Bangladesh Bank on Monday directed financial institutions (FIs) to submit their statements on corporate social responsibility and report on gender equality related performance indicators on half-yearly basis.

Department of Financial Institutions and Markets of the central bank issued a circular to the chief executives and managing directors of all FIs in this regard.

The Daily Star/Bangladesh/ 11th Jan 2012

Accelerated customers services in Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank (RAKUB) is very vital for boosting agricultural production everywhere in the country’s northwest region.

This was stressed in the 373rd meeting of the board of directors of the Bank held at its board room with its board chairman Prof Dr Shah Nawaz Ali in the chair here on Monday afternoon, the meeting sources said.The meeting also emphasised that all the existing agricultural potential sectors should be brought under qualitative and quantitative financing for making the country’s northwest region economically solvent.

The meeting also noted that the Bank’s administrative and operational activities must be transparent and accountable alongside farmers-friendly for boosting agricultural production.For the sake of sustainable livelihood development of the farmers and for bolstering the agro-based economy, the meeting called for increasing the qualitative and quantitative credit flow.  

The meeting discussed elaborately on how to make the Bank’s operational and commercial activities more dynamic through strengthening the credit support for both farm and non-farm prospective fields. Managing director of the bank Prodip Kumar Dutta, directors Khandaker Jahangir Kabir Rana, Abdul Mannan and Dr Rustam Ali Ahmed attended the meeting.

Deputy managing director Siddiqur Rahman, Mosharraf Hossain Chowdhury, general manager (Administration) Ekramul Haque, general manager (Audit, Accounts and Recovery) Nishit Kumar Shaha, general manager (Operation) Habibur Rahman and council-secretary AB Siddiqui were also present.

The Daily Independent/Bangladesh/ 11th Jan 2012