Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The central bank will need to strengthen further its supervisory and monitoring role for preventing occurrence of financial irregularities like that of Hallmark loan scam.
The observation came at a meeting of its board of directors on Thursday with chairman of the board and Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Atiur Rahman in the chair.
“The BB board wants to see a stronger central bank to check irregularities in the banks and financial institutions,” a board member of the BB told BBN in the capital Dhaka. 
He also said the BB has already taken different measures including formation of a 50-member Anti-Fraud Vigilance Squad to mitigate the risk of fraud and forgeries in the banking sector.
“We’re now working to appoint an adviser in this connection,” the director said, adding that the main responsibility of the adviser is to provide guidance and give directives on specific issues of mitigating the risk of fraud and forgeries in banking, using lessons learned from previous incidents.
The board has discussed the Hallmark Group scam, suggesting taking necessary measures to restore internal control of the country’s largest state-owned Sonali Bank Ltd.
“We’ll submit the minutes of the board meeting to the ministry of finance for taking necessary steps in this regard,” the central bank director noted. 
The board also expressed dissatisfaction at the performance of top management as well as the board of directors of Sonali Bank following the exposure of the Hallmark Group’s loan scam, he added.
 
BBN/SSR/AD-21Sept12-9:50 am (BST)