Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN) - The central bank is going to rationalize charges, fees and commissions for maintaining saving accounts by commercial banks aiming to protect the depositors' interest, officials said on Thursday.
As part of the move, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) senior officials met the representatives of the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB) Thursday for eliciting opinions in this connection.
Senior Deputy Governor of the BB Nazrul Huda presided over the meeting, which was attended by a nine-member ABB delegation led by its Chairman K Mahmood Sattar.
"The central bank has decided to issue a master circular relating to bank charges, commissions and fees for both lending and deposits that would come into effect from January 1, 2010," a BB senior official told BBN in Dhaka.
He also said the BB has taken the move after detecting inconsistencies in the charges, fees and commissions for maintaining saving accounts with the commercial banks.
The central bank earlier asked the commercial banks to provide details of different charges and fees taken by the banks to maintain saving accounts on prescribed forms to the department concerned of the central bank.
"The ABB representatives have agreed with the BB's stands in most of the points relating to bank charges, commissions and fees at the meeting," the official said, adding that the central bank will issue the circular on the basis of the ABB's opinions shortly.
Currently, the banks are now charging account maintaining fees annually from the account holders and also for closing their savings accounts.
Besides, the banks take different charges and fees including counter transaction fees, early settlement fees and pre-matured encashment fees.
There is no uniformity in fees charged by the banks when any account holder wants to close their account.
For instance, private commercial banks charge their clients between BDT 50 and BDT 300 for closing such account while a state-owned commercial bank (SCB) takes no charges for the same service.
On November 18 this year, the central bank asked all commercial banks to rationalise their charges, fees and commissions aiming to reduce the cost of doing business in Bangladesh.
Under the latest guidelines, foreign correspondence, handling and document endorsement charges have been waived while the charges for letter of credit (LC) confirmation reduced to 0.20 per cent from 0.50 per cent.
Charges for LC advising, amendment and transfer have been cut to BDT 750 from BDT 1000 while commission for opening deferred LC slashed to 0.50 percent from 0.60 percent on a quarterly basis.
Commissions for export bills negotiation and export bills collection have been fixed at maximum 0.15 percent, according to the guidelines.
BBN/SS/SI/AD-11December09-1:15 am (BST)