Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The central bank of Bangladesh has taken some regulatory initiatives including installation of software for checking fraud and forgery in the country's banking sector, officials said.
Under the latest moves, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) introduced the software - integrated supervision system (ISS) – on Tuesday for collection of financial statements on monthly basis from all bank branches across the country.
The foreign exchange branch, officially known as authorised dealer (AD) branch, and headquarters of all banks have already been instructed to provide their key indicators including credit and deposit positions using the ISS.
"We’ll issue a circular in this connection soon asking the chief executive officers of all scheduled banks to provide necessary information from all their branches using the ISS," a BB official told BBN in Dhaka. He also said the central bank has taken the latest moves aiming to check irregularities in the banking sector through strengthening its monitoring and supervision.
"We've undertaken different reformative and redesigned actions for the financial sector supervision framework with a view to energizing and encouraging supervision activity," the central banker said while explaining BB's latest moves relating to its monitoring and supervisory activities.
As part of the moves, the BB has formed a four-member committee, headed by a deputy general manager, to update its procedural guidelines for inspectors for improving their quality of inspection.
"The amended guidelines will help the inspectors to identify various irregularities in the banking sector through using latest techniques," another BB official said.
He also said the check-list for core risk management guidelines inspection will be reviewed under the amended guidelines aiming to minimise financial risks of the banks.
The central bank earlier identified six core risk areas in the banking sector. The risk factors are: credit, asset and liability, foreign exchange, information technology, internal control and compliance, and money laundering.
Besides, inspection strategies of the central bank have been amended to address the recent foreign exchange irregularities using accepted bills and inland bill purchases (IBPs) in both foreign and local currencies.
During the inspection of AD branches, the inspectors are collecting different information including foreign bills' purchases (FBPs), loans against trust receipts (LTRs), payment against documents (PADs), loan against imported merchandise (LIM), forced loans and off-balance exposures.
BBN/SSR/AD-10Oct13-1:24 pm (BST)