Banks are facing a huge rise in cash withdrawals as people have rushed to meet additional spending for the Eid, officials said yesterday.
To avoid any crisis, Bangladesh Bank injected about Tk 2,869 crore into the banking system last week through repurchase agreement auctions, a common measure by the central bank to ensure enough liquidity.
"Our vault has become nearly empty today (Monday). We have paid out Tk 1.6 crore, a 20 percent rise in transactions from last week,” said Mohammad Sayeedullah, vice-president of Islami Bank and also manager of its Elephant Road branch.
Generally, people go on the shopping spree and empty their bank accounts in the last week of Ramadan, but the situation appears different this year. Customers are trying to avoid the last-minute rush for cash pullout, bankers said.
The inter-bank call money market remains relatively stable although bank officials fear the rate may go up in coming days.
“Cash withdrawals witnessed a rapid rise on Sunday. We transacted 100 more transactions on Sunday than on any workday of the previous week,” said a senior official of Eastern Bank's English Road branch.
The EBL official said the cash withdrawal rate might increase by 25-30 percent next week.
“We faced a mad rush Sunday and were forced to work until 5:30pm to pay account holders,” he said.
Kamruzzaman, an official of AB Bank Ltd, echoed him.
“People are also pulling out their fixed and savings deposits at pre-matured stages,” Sayeedullah said.
A fund manager of the National Credit and Commerce Bank Ltd however said the call money market remained steady yesterday. The rate hovered between 8 percent and 9 percent.
Abdus Sobhan, first assistant vice-president of Shahjalal Islami Bank Ltd, said the call money market might face a rising trend next week when government and private offices would start paying their staff festival bonuses.