Fighting tax evasion, preventing trade-based illicit financial outflows and ending the culture of money laundering and loan defaults is a much more sustainable solution to adding to foreign exchange reserves than taking foreign loans on interest.

The Bangladesh Bank today revised its policy for post import financing (PIF) in order to give clarification to banks as importers have faced complexities to get fund properly.

The government seems to lack the will to arrest bad loans and restore corporate governance in the banking sector with the habitual defaulters working the system, analysts said.

State-run Janata Bank’s provisioning shortfall has hit a whopping Tk 8,256 crore, the highest-ever deficit for any bank in the country, putting depositors’ money at risk.

Bangladesh Bank and a government committee have come up with a generous scheme to allow easy rescheduling of defaulted loans, which experts say will hurt the banking sector and the economy at large.

The new finance minister, Mustafa Kamal, has vowed to address the longstanding concerns regarding increasing non-performing loans in banks. Khondkar Ibrahim Khaled, a noted banker and former deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank, talks to The Daily Star's Nazmul Ahasan about the issue.