Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) – The central bank of Bangladesh is going to finally approve setting up of the country’s first ever Non-Resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) bank, officials said.
Names of three proposed NRB banks will be placed before the board of directors meeting of the Bangladesh Bank scheduled for Thursday.
“We’ve already completed all formalities for submitting a report in this connection at the next board meeting,” a senior official of Bangladesh Bank (BB) said, adding that that the Board will take the final decision.
After scrutiny by three committees of the central bank, three of the five applications were listed for proposed NRB banks.
Farasat Ali and Nizam Chowdhury now living in the United States have applied for the proposed NRB Commercial Bank and NRB Bank respectively, as chairmen.
Another applicant, Iqbal Ahmed, who is residing in the United Kingdom, has applied for a bank named NRB Bank as chairman.
The new NRB bank will be established with a paid-up capital not less than BDT 4.0 billion. Share holding of the NRB bank will be 50 percent from the NRB sponsors, and the rest 50 percent will be collected from public offers.
The minimum shareholding stake of each sponsor will be BDT 100 million, and the maximum will be 10 percent of the bank’s total share-capital.
The central bank earlier decided in principle to grant license to a new banking company to be set up by NRBs in pursuant to section 31 of the Banking Companies Act, 1991 after considering the need and overall strategy congenial to effective monetary and financial sector policy for the country.
The BB sought amplifications from interested entrepreneurs for setting up NRB bank on March 7 last year. The last date of submission of applications was May 31, 2011.
BBN/SSR/AD-15Mar12-11:33 am (BST)
