Extend liquidity support to private banks

The central bank yesterday asked four state-run commercial banks to extend liquidity support to cash-strapped private banks.

The state banks, which have a strong liquidity base, have also been asked not to charge high interest rate on the funds to be given to the private lenders.

The instructions came at a meeting between the central bank and the banks – Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali – at the Bangladesh Bank headquarters in the capital.

Fazle Kabir, governor of the central bank, chaired the meeting, where the managing directors of the state banks were present. The central bank sat with the banks as part of its memorandum of understanding with the lenders.

A majority of state-run commercial banks have long been providing liquidity support to cash-strapped banks, said Mohammad Shams-Ul Islam, managing director of Agrani Bank.

“We will keep it up as per instruction of the central bank,” he said.

The central bank also instructed the banks to strengthen loan recovery in a bid to rein in the rise in default loans.

The four banks performed badly last year in terms of recovering default loans, both from the top 20 defaulters and others.

Agrani and Rupali recovered Tk 1.74 crore and Tk 5.19 crore respectively from the top 20 defaulters, down from Tk 25 crore and Tk 153 crore a year ago.

On the other hand, Sonali and Janata recovered more from their top defaulters in 2018, recouping Tk 120 crore and Tk 100 crore respectively, up from Tk 31 crore and Tk 18 crore from a year ago.