Mamun Rashid

Fifty years of Bangladesh is marked with a few significant achievements. The country became a $400-plus billion economy in 2021. Per capita income rose to $2,554 in FY21, which is higher than our neighbouring countries, including India.

I took over as head of treasury and a country senior team member in the then ANZ Grindlays Bank in early 1988 and since then worked as a senior executive in three global banks at home and abroad.

Knowledge never stays still. There is a constant evolution of knowledge as insights are built upon previous ones and the pace of knowledge growth has never been faster than in the 21st century.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) puts the onus back on business enterprises themselves. Under this concept, it becomes the duty of businesses to be conscious of the kind of impact they have on various aspects of society from the economic, social, and environmental perspectives.

I take pride in sharing with my readers that I was taught branding at Kellogg School of Management by a certain Professor Philip Kotler. At the same time, my piece on “Branding Bangladesh” drew the attention of Simon Anholt, known to be a guru of this subject, who subsequently wrote a piece on nation branding in the local newspaper.

There is an uproar, at least among civil society forums, the media and common people, regarding a recent government decision to increase the price of diesel and kerosene by Tk 15 per litre each.

The breakneck pace of innovation disrupting the financial sector has ushered in a level of uncertainty which the sector has not faced before. New entrants and a rapidly changing business model have provided customers with a multiplicity of options.

The world has changed. Radically new technologies, new forms of working, new customs, new standards, and the gamut of changes spurred on by the “new normal” have drastically changed the modern day workplace.

As of March 2021, the total outstanding loans in the banking sector in Bangladesh stood at Tk 111,1940 crore. Out of this, an amount of Tk 95,090 crore was classified, equivalent to 8.48 per cent of the total loans.

June 3 marked a remarkable date for Bangladesh as the finance minister presented the country’s 50th budget in parliament on the occasion of the 50th year of independence. As expected, the Tk 603,681 crore budget is the largest that has ever been proposed.

A trade deficit may not be too bad even amidst the coronavirus challenges if you have a healthy foreign exchange reserve, strong remittance inflow, foreign direct investment, and aid flow. More importantly, when capital machinery or industrial raw materials import is the cause of this possible trade deficit.

With disruptive innovations across the financial sector, new entrants and multiple options for customers, many might think that traditional banking has a bleak future.

Covid-19 has accelerated technology adoption across the board. A key sector that has witnessed a boom is financial services, viz. mobile financial service (MFS), cards, and other alternative payment methods. Fintech has unpredictably and truly arrived in Bangladesh.

Among perennial issues such as geopolitical, economic, climate and health, one of the biggest challenges for countries today is cybersecurity.

Bangladesh has seen a significant rise in consumer banking or retail offering by banks or a few non-bank financial institutions (NBFIs) in recent days. During the coronavirus pandemic,

I received a short message on my phone just before noon on July 1 but could not notice it properly due to office work.

Despite a lot of loud discussions regarding financial inclusion, a large number of people in Bangladesh are far from being granted access to basic financial services, making financial inclusion development an essential project in the country.

As Bangladesh has covered considerable ground into achieving the coveted middle-income country status, a robust insurance sector will be vital in consolidating the growth story.

A few weeks back, I attended a financial sector specialist meet at New York. Apart from rapid technology transformation issues, a major discussion took place about transitioning from LIBOR to a new order, popularly termed as IBOR or Inter-bank Offered Rate, to shift the power from traders to finance or independent units for rate fixation.

Aadhaar is a one-time identity card issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) free of cost for all residents of India, making it the world’s largest biometric identification programme.