Rejoinder, our reply
The ICB Islamic Bank has sent a rejoinder against a report titled “ICB Islamic Bank hit by fresh liquidity crisis” published in The Daily Star on March 12.
The rejoinder was signed by Mir Murtoza Karim, head of the bank's public relations department. Here is what the bank said:
“The article…is misleading for the customers of our bank, when it comes from most circulated English daily of the country. There is no liquidity crisis in the bank and the customers are doing regular transactions without any difficulty.”
“All our branches have sufficient amount of cash to meet their daily requirements and it is business as usual. The bank is making investments (giving loans) and accepting deposits in the normal course of its business.”
“ICB Islamic Bank has already paid 80% (Tk 1521 crore) of the frozen deposits inherited from Oriental Bank. The bank is required to pay the balance 20% (Tk 444.34 crore) over a period of time and is only exploring avenues to retain these deposits by converting these frozen deposits (non profit/interest bearing) to profit bearing deposits, to be repaid over three years.”
“This endeavor will not only help the depositors to earn profit/interest half yearly (which they were not getting hitherto) but also assist the bank to invest these amounts optimally in the economy of the country and for the benefit of all stakeholders.” “We vehemently deny that there is any liquidity crisis in the bank.”
Our Reply
The Daily Star ran the report on the basis of a Bangladesh Bank (BB) assessment paper on ICB Islamic Bank.
The central bank's document says, as per a BB instruction in November 2016, ICB Islamic Bank was supposed to refund all clients that had deposits of up to Tk 20 lakh with the Oriental Bank within the next three years.
Once returning those clients' funds, ICB Islamic would have to move to refunding those who had deposits of up to Tk 50 lakh. Their claims will have to be settled over the next one and a half years.
Thus far, ICB Islamic managed to pay back only a select few clients who had deposits of up to Tk 20 lakh in May last year. The bank failed to pay the second instalment that was due in November last year because of a long-term liquidity crisis in the organisation, according to the BB assessment paper.
Before publishing the report, The Daily Star correspondent also talked to the ICB Islamic Bank's managing director to take his comment about the ongoing liquidity crunch with the bank.
The central bank earlier issued circulars several times extending the deadline to make the refunds. But all depositors of the defunct Oriental Bank are yet to get their funds.
We stand by our report.
Comments