Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman has attributed the resilience of the Bangladesh economy, against the onslaught of the recent global crisis, to the adoption of limited and regulated external exposure. “The limited, regulated external exposure served well in shielding our financial markets and institutions from the debacle caused by the contagious global crisis.
“The financial system in Bangladesh remains unscathed by the crisis, and well-poised to support the recovery of the real sector from weakening demand in the traditional Western export markets,” said Dr Rahman, while addressing a high-level meeting on better supervision of financial transactions, as well as better banking in a post-crisis era at Kuala Lumpur.
Economists and central bank governors from different countries attended the meeting, which was jointly organized by the Financial Stability Institute and Executives’ Meeting of East Asia-Pacific.
The Bangladesh Bank Governor said that Bangladesh is keeping track of developments in supervisory approaches and techniques stipulated by the Basel accords, apart from other regional groupings.
He said that being a developing market, in addition to a supervisory regime, with other more advanced peers ahead in the learning curve, enables the country’s banking sector to learn from implementation glitches and pitfalls faced elsewhere.
Banks in Bangladesh are now busy adjusting themselves properly to the Basel II capital regime (mandatory from 2010), and its attendant risk rating and risk management structures. Basel III capital requirement enhancements will be phased in duly. Regular stress testing has been introduced mandatorily to bring out vulnerabilities in banks.
Dr. Atiur said that they are looking forward to the revised global standards of fair value accounting, although tradable securities as yet do not comprise very significant parts of asset books in Bangladeshi banks.
“Our banking institutions are as yet nowhere near assuming global “too big to fail” or “too important to fail” stature; for branches of large global banks in Bangladesh, we expect cooperation and access to pertinent supervisory information from home country supervisors.”
Dr. Atiur observed that despite very elegant supervisory structures covering such aspects, “We hear about mature financial markets in advanced economies like USA and UK, failing to finance SMEs adequately or on affordable terms, while we do not hear about similar financing difficulty for activities of questionable merit like speculation and leveraged buyout of equity.”
He observed that although qualitative global best practice norms are working well in combating money laundering and terrorism financing, there appears to be no reason why this should not work in attaining better allocations for financing, eliminating pockets of exclusion of positive growth sources, and instead delineating new exclusion areas for questionable and potentially destabilizing activities.
The Bangladesh Bank Governor said that in Bangladesh qualitative promotion of financial inclusion, alongside discouragement of speculative, wasteful and nonessential use of credit resources have already been in service for quite a while already.
Dr Atiur Rahman is due to return home this evening from Malaysia.

News: The Independent /Bangladesh/19 Jan 2011

The government will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the commercial banks for introducing electronic government procurement (e-GP) mechanism as the system requires electronic payment facilities.

Initially, the MoU will be signed with 12 banks by the end of this month and by turn all other banks will be tied up with the system in a bid to ensure accountability and transparency in the government procurement.

It was decided at a meeting between the Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) and the commercial banks along with the central bank at the conference room of the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) in the city yesterday.

IMED secretary Habib Ullah Majumder presided over the meeting organised by the CPTU.

CPTU Director General Amulya Kumar Debnath, Bangladesh Bank Executive Director Nazneen Sultana, CPTU Director Aziz Taher Khan, representatives from 12 banks and other officials were present at the meeting.

The CPTU made a presentation at the meeting on e-payment options for introducing the e-GP system. The representatives of the banks discussed about their existing system, capacity and involvement in the process of introducing the e-payment system.

The officials said that all the banks do not have the same capacity and system for such operation. So, it has to be sorted out between the banks and CPTU.

Bangladesh Bank representative suggested that the banks individually would fix a reasonable service charge for tenders following their bank guidelines.

The meeting decided that the banks would expedite their preparation for this and CPTU would hold further discussions with them to finalise the MoU and technical, and management issues as soon as possible.

The CPTU is implementing the Public Procurement Reform Project-II (PPRP-II) supported by the World Bank. Introducing e-GP on pilot basis in four target agencies such as LGED, REB, WDB and RHD is one of the four components of the PPRP-II, sources said.

After success of the pilot project, the system will be introduced at all ministries and divisions by June this year to ensure efficient, effective and transparent public bidding procedures.

News: Daily Sun /Bangladesh/19 Jan 2011

Bank Asia, a private commercial bank, has inaugurated a branch in Moulvibazar district yesterday.

A Rouf Chowdhury, chairman of Bank Asia, formally inaugurated the branch. M Safwan Chowdhury and M Lakiotullah, vice chairmans of the bank, Shah Mohammad Nurul Alam, its director, and Irfanuddin Ahmad, president and managing director, were also present.

Customers of the bank will avail ATM and on line banking facilities from the branch along with other modern banking services, said a press release.

Bank Asia, launched in 1999, offers various types of banking facilities which include Islami banking, brokerage services, SME banking and ATM and internet banking.

News: Daily Sun /Bangladesh/19 Jan 2011

The 1188th branch of Sonali Bank Limited was opened at Nolin Bazar in Tangail recently.

Lawmaker Khandhokar Asaduzzaman inaugurated the branch as the chief guest, said a press release.

Directors of the bank K M Zaman Romel, Zannat Ara Henry, Subhas Chandra Singh Roy, managing director and CEO Md Humayun Kabir and local customers were present.

News: Daily Sun /Bangladesh/19 Jan 2011

First Security Islami Bank Limited (FSIBL) has organised a mangers’ conference at BRAC-CDM at Rajendrapur under Gazipur district recently, said a press release.

The conference was presided over by AAM Zakaria, managing director of FSIBL.

M Abdul Quddus, deputy managing director of FSIBL also attended the conference, among others.

The conference reviewed the operational performance of individual branches and divisions.

The FSIBL Managing Director in his inaugural speech gave emphasis on recovery of classified loans during the conference.

News: Daily Sun /Bangladesh/19 Jan 2011