Bangladesh Bank Headquarters
Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The central bank board of directors gave final approval to proposed Community Bank Limited on Monday after scrutinising all documents properly.
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) board also asked the officials concerned to place again three other proposals to setting up new private commercial banks with required documents for further consideration.
The decisions were taken at a meeting of the central bank’s board of directors, held at its headquarters in Dhaka, with BB Governor Fazle Kabir in the chair.
“Our board has unanimously given final approval to the proposed Community Bank Ltd after scrutinising all relevant documents,” BB spokesperson Md. Serajul Islam told reporters after the meeting.
On August 28, the central bank board gave clearance for issuing licence to proposed Community Bank Limited, owned by Bangladesh Policy Welfare Trust, after completing all rules and regulations.
Meanwhile, the BB officials concerned were asked to submit the proposal for allowing Bengal Commercial Bank Ltd before the board after settling the tax-related cases of its three proposed sponsor shareholders with High Court, according to the spokesperson.
Bengal Bank is initiated by Bengal Group of Industries, a local manufacturer of plastic goods. Awami League (AL) lawmaker Morshed Alam is the chairman of the Group, and his younger brother Jashim Uddin is the chairman of the proposed bank.
The spokesperson also said the proposal for Peoples Bank Ltd will be placed again before the board after revaluating the net asset of its proposed chairman M A Kashem in United States.
“We’ll scrutinise the net asset of Mr. Kashem on the basis of the report of Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Mr. Islam also an executive director of the central bank explained.
Mr. Kashem is also an AL leader in the US.
He also said the proposal for Citizen Bank Ltd will also be submitted again for the board’s approval after furnishing all relevant documents.
“The proposed Citizen Bank had not submitted a complete application for approval,” the BB spokesperson added.
“We’ll place the proposals for allowing the new banks to the board whenever we get the necessary documents from the proposed banks concerned,” he said while replying to a query.
The issue of giving nod to new banks surfaced after a disclosure of Finance Minister A M A Muhith at parliament on Wednesday that the government is in the process of giving approval to four new PCBs.
Sources, however, said Ministry of Finance advised the central bank in September to issue licences for setting up the new banks.
The central bank earlier gave negative opinions regarding the proposals for allowing new banks.
The BB in its opinions mentioned that the deteriorating financial health of many banks, especially the newly-launched nine banks, does not allow operating any new bank.
After Awami League formed the government in 2009, nine banks were given permission on ‘political consideration’ despite opposition from different quarters.
Besides, Shimanto Bank, owned by BGB Welfare Trust, was given licence in 2016.
Currently, there are 58 banks in Bangladesh. Of them, 40 are local private banks, nine are foreign and nine are state-owned.
BBN/SSR/AD