AM Jahid

Orion Pharma Ltd, a pharmaceutical company of Orion Group, has been provided a rescheduling facility on a forced/demand loan by state-run Agrani Bank with special approval from the Bangladesh Bank.

The Bangladesh Bank yesterday appointed an administrator to Nagad after one too many allegations of irregularities in the mobile financial service provider’s operations and dealings.

A favourable legal framework for facilitating the recovery of non-performing loans (NPLs) should be formed in consultation with the attorney general and legal experts, according to Selim RF Hussain, chairman of the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB)..Hussain, also managing director a

S Alam Group and its associate companies took out Tk 95,331 crore between 2017 and June this year from six banks, with 79 percent of the sum coming from Islami Bank.

As much as 90 percent of the loans disbursed by a branch of state-run Janata Bank was for S Alam Group, in yet another instance of how the Chattogram-based business giant exerted its influence on the country’s banking sector.

The interim government should prepare a white paper on the economy and identify sectors that require immediate attention, according to Dr Debapriya Bhattacharya, an eminent economist and public policy analyst.

Loans amounting to nearly $600 million, or Tk 7,000 crore, disbursed from the Export Development Fund (EDF), which was formed based on the country’s foreign exchange reserves, have been defaulted, according to a Bangladesh Bank (BB) document.

Businesses in Bangladesh, especially those that mostly deal with cash transactions, yesterday said they are contending with a liquidity crunch as the country’s central bank has placed a limit on daily cash withdrawals from banks.

People’s sufferings due to cash shortages have intensified as most ATM booths started running dry nearly a week ago in Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh Bank has incurred a loss of Tk 55 crore from its foreign exchange deal with Islami Bank centring the introduction of the crawling peg exchange rate system.

Nasir Hossain, a resident of the capital’s Dhanmondi area, had to urgently buy daily necessities as he had not gone to the market for the past few days in the wake of the deadly protests that forced Sheikh Hasina to resign from her post as prime minister.

Although banks reopened yesterday, a day after prime minister Sheikh Hasina handed in her resignation, overall activities including financial transactions were affected due to security concerns among lenders and clients.

“Brother, please take at least four bananas. If not, my family will have to go without food. They are already starving,” said Shukkur Ali while pleading with this reporter to make a purchase.

The amount of bad loans has been spiralling in Bangladesh owing to rampant politically-motivated lending and inadequate credit risk management, according to a World Bank report.

Total foreign debt servicing, including repayment of the principal amount as well as interest, rose to $3.35 billion in financial year 2023-24 from $2.67 billion in 2022-23.

Bangladesh is unlikely to fulfil the revenue collection target set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as part of its conditions for the fourth tranche of a $4.7 billion loan programme.

Rabiul Islam, a practising Muslim who works at a private organisation, refrained from conventional banking services for many years as both paying and receiving interest are against his religious principles.

The overall losses of state-owned enterprises in Bangladesh may rise by nearly five times in the current fiscal year compared to the previous year, according to a projection by the government.

A longstanding political issue has now evolved from a financial concern to a structural problem in Bangladesh, according to noted economist Prof Rehman Sobhan.

Dhaka Bank is increasingly embracing technologies to serve customers digitally and enhancing its lending to small clients as it redesigns its focus to stay relevant.