Banks to continue updating loan default info on weekly holidays

The central bank yesterday directed all commercial banks' to keep open the relevant departments between 9:00am and 1:00pm Friday and Saturday as Bangladesh Bank would update its information on defaulted loans of aspirant candidates of the parliamentary elections.
State-owned banks' head offices yesterday also asked all their branches across the country to send information on prospective election candidates' defaulted loans by November 12.
Commercial banks already sent information on loan-defaulter candidates, as of October 2008, to the Credit Information Bureau (CIB) of Bangladesh Bank. The CIB will remain open Friday and Saturday so that it can correct errors in that information and enquire about any inadequacy in information provided by the commercial banks.
The Bangladesh Bank directed commercial banks to recheck for inadvertent mistakes and errors.
However, the state-owned banks asked its branches to provide loan-defaulters' details, who could be candidates in the upcoming parliamentary or upazila elections.
The state-owned banks also asked its branches to send a bank certification on possible candidates even if they are not loan defaulters.
Bank branches will send particulars of candidates to the head office by November 14 if they find any defaulters among the candidates who will submit their nomination papers by November 13, the last day for filing nomination papers.
The state-owned banks also asked its branches to place their objections before the returning offices concerned, when there are grounds to do so, about any candidate at any constituency even if it is outside of the banks' location concerned.
The branch managers or regional officers concerned will be held responsible if they fail to place such objections timely.
As per the Representation of the People Order (RPO), defaulters with loans rescheduled 15 days before submission of nomination papers can contest the elections. The utility bill defaulters have to follow the same procedure if they intend to participate in the elections.
Many possible candidates failed to reschedule their defaulted loans and utility bills within the stipulated time and some of them are now still trying to reschedule their loans and bills, bank sources said.
The Election Commission (EC) earlier sent a list of around 9,000 prospective candidates of the upcoming parliamentary election to the state-owned banks and utility service providers to identify loan defaulters among them.