Jamuna Bank Limited has approved 22 per cent stock dividend in its 10th annual general meeting held on Bangabandhu Intemational Conference Centre, in the city recently. Md Belal Hossain, chairman of the bank presided over the meeting, says a press release.

Besides, Nur Mohammed, chairman of Jamuna Bank Foundation, M. A. Khayer, chairman of Executive Committee of JBL, other directors of the bank and numerous shareholders were present at the meeting.

Source: The Independent/Bangladesh/May-25-2011

The 25th annual general meeting (AGM) of Rupali Bank Limited was held at the Institution of Engineers in Dhaka recently.

Dr. Ahmed Al-Kabir, chairman, board of directors of the bank presided over the meeting, says a press release. Apart from that M. Farid Uddin, managing director, and all members of the board of directors and other executives including a large number of shareholders were also present at the meeting.

The board of directors of the bank after a long interval of twenty two years has approved 10 per cent stock dividend for the year 2010.

Al-Kabir said that the bank continued to grow progressively in all major areas of banking business. Total deposit of the bank increased to Tk. 9112.38 crore in 2010 from Tk. 7380.34 crore in 2009 while the total advances increased to Tk. 6604.90 crore in 2010 from Tk. 5234.42 crore in 2009.

Source: The Independent/Bangladesh/May-25-2011

Bangladesh Bank governor, Dr Atiur Rahman, on Tuesday urged the managements of banks engaged in Islamic banking in the country to remain alert against terrorism financing. "I would like to remind you all about the need of due alertness against aiding extremists and abetting terrorism," Dr Atiur told bankers at an international seminar on "The Global Crisis and the Strength of Islamic Banking System", organized jointly by Islamic Bank Bangladesh Ltd. (IBBL) and Islamic Banks Consultative Forum (IBCF), at a hotel in the city.

The central bank governor also hailed the role of Islamic banking by saying, "Its ethos serves well to check laundering money that is associated with crime."
He said the profit and loss sharing nature of liabilities of Islamic banks is a good safeguard against solvency risk.

He said Islamic banking constituted 18.5 per cent of deposits and 19.7 percent of advances of the banking system in 2010, in Bangladesh. He said, recently, the central bank has circulated a comprehensive guideline to the banks for proper growth of Islamic banking in the country.

He said the country still lacks a secondary market for Islamic financing products for which a portion of the money deposited in the central bank by Islamic banks remains idle.
Speaking on the occasion, IDB (Islamic Development Bank) president Dr Ahmed Mohamed Ali said Islamic banking provides a relatively stable Shari'ah compliant alternative to the financial needs of the society.
"This stability demonstrated by Islamic banks during the recent financial crisis in comparison with their conventional counterparts, has already been recognised," he said.   The IDB president said the Islamic financial service industry is also expanding its scope by including microfinance namely micro-Takaful.

As Bangladesh pioneered the idea of microfinance, the micro-Takaful system has been designed to give low-income individuals in communities quick and easy access to socio-economic services, opportunities for self-employment and thus the chance to uplift themselves out of poverty, he said. 

IBCF chairman Prof Abu Nasser Mohammad Abdul Zaher said that the Islamic banks are working to free the people of Bangladesh from the curse of interest. The first day of the seminar was participated by some 275 officials of 11 banks those have been operating Islamic banking in the country completely or by opening a separate branch or a window.  Former IDB research head, Dr Ausaf Ahmed has presented a key-note paper at the seminar.
Among others, IBCF vice chairman Nazrul Islam Mojumder spoke at the seminar.

Past and present presidents of Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Salman F Rahman and AK Azad attended the first day's concluding session of the seminar. Organisers said several business sessions linked to Islamic banking will be held on the second day, on May 25, of the seminar which will be open for bankers and traders.

Source: The Independent/Bangladesh/May-25-2011

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) in its strategic country plan for Bangladesh pledged to provide U$$ 3.715 billion fund for 2011-14 to develop the country's weak infrastructure, power and energy sector and the capital market.

The multilateral development agency planned to provide around $1.40 billion to set up power plants with 9500 megawatt capacity in the period.

Around 33 per cent of the loan will be provided for power and energy sector development. Transport and information technology development sector will get $745 million or 26 per cent of the loan package.

ADB planned to provide the loan package in its strategic country plan for Bangladesh which will be placed to the Economic Relations Division (ERD) today (Wednesday).

The donor agency has given the highest priorities on development of the power sector during 2012-14.

A mission on 'Bangladesh country partnership strategy' arrived in the country last Sunday to offer the loan package. The mission will sit with all of the government high-ups to discuss the strategic plan.

ADB has prepared the strategy paper titled 'country business plan' by projecting GDP (gross domestic product) growth of 6.0 per cent in the current year.

The strategic paper said ADB will provide US$ 3715 million or Tk 260 billion to Bangladesh in the 2011-14 period.

It will provide US$ 900 million in 2011 for five major sectors. ADB has pledged to provide $2815 million in 2012-14 period for 23 projects.

For agriculture and natural resources development, it pledged to allocate $140 million or 5.0 per cent of the total loan package.

Education will get $390 million or 14 per cent of the total loan while $80 million will be provided for the financial sector development.

Water supply and infrastructure development of urban areas will get $535 million loan from the package.

The development partner focused on four main sectors to expedite development that include power, infrastructure for better communication, urbanisation and education.

ADB said the Bangladesh will have to include climate change in all of its economic activities. It has set the priorities for the loan package.

The ADB plan said it would provide $900 million for agriculture, primary education, power, railway and water supply projects in the current fiscal.

Education will get $320 million, the highest amount, in loan this year, while power is the next priority with $ 300 million.

For 2012, the development partner pledged to provide $910 million for capital market development, climate change, education, power sector, Public-Private Partnership (PPP), sustainable primary health services for urban area, development of transportation system in the greater Dhaka and transport corridors.

Power sector will get the highest priority in 2012 with $250 million loan out of $910 million.

Transport corridor development projects will get $175 million in 2012, while $80 million will be allocated for development of stock market in 2012.

PPP will get $150 million, while development of the city's transportation system will get $145 milion in 2012.

For 2013, the ADB allocated $965 million for regional power generation and transmission, secondary education development, Khilkhet water supply projects, coastal urbanisation infrastructure development projects, sub-continental railway projects.

The ADB plan has allocated $910 million for 2014 giving highest priority to power development, PPP, Chittagong port development, railway, river dredging, urbanisation.

In the strategic plan, the ADB has focused on the country's manpower strength and vibrant private sector. It also appreciated impressive growth of textile and agriculture.

The plan said the government is moving in the right direction to achieve Millennium Development Goal (MDG) as it has successfully reduced child and maternal mortality rate and improved pure water supply.

Source: Financial Express/Bangladesh/May-25-2011

Niaz Habib, Managing Director of Premier Bank Limited

Premier Bank Limited focused more on the SMEs in recent years in a bid to help flourish the sector's growth.

"We believe SMEs are emerging as a potential segment of the country's economy in the backdrop of the global economic crisis and collapse of renowned financial institutions have added new urgency for diversification of bank loan portfolio and financing in SME sector," Premier Bank Managing Director Niaz Habib told the FE in an interview.

In testimony to the bank's thrust on SME activities, the bank added three more branches in 2010 with the earlier five branches, he said.

The bank employed various tools and techniques, products and policies, staff strategies to attract the potential entrepreneurs in the economy.

Outstanding amount of SME segment recorded at Tk 1445.65 million marking a 3.12 per cent of total loan portfolio of the bank.

The bank is also giving priority to women entrepreneurs through setting up 'women entrepreneurs finance department' to give them extra edge and advantage to meet their financial needs on innovative ventures, Mr Habib said.

Explaining the bank's efforts on adopting modern banking methods, he said : We have adopted latest technologies to develop more flexible structure that can respond quickly to the dynamics of a fast changing market scenario to face the challenges emanating from the growing competition and increasing customer aspiration.

"In 2010 we embarked on large investment in development of information and communication technology and successfully implemented the most sophisticated and centralized core banking system," he said adding "This is the plus point of us to provide good service to customers that differentiates us from other banks and financial institutes."

On adopting IT, he said it is the need of the time that a successful bank has to embrace the latest banking technology to modernize its performance as well as maximize its efficiency.

With the latest uploading of 'Core Banking Solution' software in the banks' core operating system, Premier Bank is looking for bringing up a revolutionary change in the country's banking industry.

"Our target is to make the Premier Bank a 'Bank of Choice' for clients of all stages as well in terms of employee satisfaction. Modernization of our banking system is a part of this vision," he added.

Terming the bank's activities as process oriented bank, Mr Habib said the bank is growing in all sectors. We are compliant in Basel II to cope with the international best practices and to make its capital more risk sensitive as well as more shock resilient.

"Aiming to serve the remittance earners' with our advanced and sophisticated remittance transferring systems, we are setting up exchange houses in London, Dubai, Singapore and Italy," he said.

These four locations were chosen under the first phase of overseas exchange house establishment considering their overseas employment potentials for Bangladeshi workers, he said.

The bank has issued 20,000 credit cards and 16,000 debit cards until 2010 and earned an accumulated profit of Tk 210 million. Last year it issued VISA Prepaid Travel Card, MasterCard both credit and debit card along with Platinum Dual Currency and Premier Hajj Card which added new dimension in card business.

Paid-up capital of the bank stood at Tk 2914.97 million in 2010 up from Tk 2242.28 million in 2009 and its capital adequacy ratio is 10.01 per cent in 2010 while in 2009 it was 15.14 per cent, its annual report said.

In 2010, total deposits went up to Tk 17,309 million, total assets of the bank stood at Tk 68240.35 million with 63 per cent growth of earning per share that increased to Tk 6.08.

At present the bank has 52 branches with approval of more six branches from the central bank and plans to open another 20. 

- By Monira Munni

Source: Financial Express/Bangladesh/May-25-2011