Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- The central bank of Bangladesh has asked state-owned Rupali Bank Limited (RBL) for taking necessary measures to improve internal controls for checking fraudulence and forgeries in future, officials said.
The directive came at a meeting held at the Bangladesh Bank (BB) on Tuesday with BB Governor Atiur Rahman in the chair to review implementation of the memorandum of understanding (MoU), signed by the RBL.
The state-owned commercial bank (SCB) has been asked to improve its human resources and go for the latest information technology (IT) to provide better services to its clients.
 “The central bank has asked the RBL to continue its various existing initiatives including recovery of the default loans for improving its overall financial health,” a BB official told BBN in Dhaka. 
The central banker also said: “The bank has been able to exceed the target of recovery of default loans in line with the MoU during the July-September period of this calendar year. But the RBL has failed to achieve target for recovery of loans of the top 20 defaulters.” 
He also said the RBL recovered around BDT 1.00 billion as default loans during the period under review against the target of BDT 910 million.
However, the percentage of default loans of the RBL rose to 8.95 percent in September from 7.18 percent as of June 30 last, according to the central bank statistics.
The average percentage of the banking sector’s default loans stood at 8.75 percent in September last, up from 7.17 percent as of June 30, the BB data showed.
The amount of classified loans of RBL rose to BDT 7.55 billion in September from BDT 5.92 billion as of June 30 last year, the BB data showed.
The meeting also reviewed various issues, including liquidity position, credit growth and cost of fund in line with the existing MoU, according to the BB officials.
 
BBN/SSR/AD-09Jan13-8:25 am (BST) 
The central bank earlier held meetings with three SCBs –Sonali, Janata and Agrani –aiming to ensure discipline through improving their internal controls.
The BB’s latest move came against the backdrop of large-scale irregularities in the commercial banks, particularly in the SCBs, in the recent months.