Bad loans rise slightly

The amount of default loans in the banking system rose by 0.01 percentage point to Tk 52,309 crore in the second quarter this year.
The amount was 11.91 percent of the total outstanding loans of the banks as on June 30.
Banks had Tk 51,019 crore default loans on March 30. However, the deficits in provisioning fell sharply in the April-June quarter as provisioning against bad loans marked a rise in the period.
On June 30, the banks' provision deficit was Tk 2,462 crore, down from Tk 9,458 crore three months back.
Though the amount of default loans was high, strict monitoring gave a rise to provisioning, which would help improve the health of the banks, a Bangladesh Bank official said.
Default loans increased significantly at state banks due to various irregularities, and the amount continued to rise in the first quarter this year.

But in the second quarter, the state banks saw their default loans fall by Tk 551 crore.
Default loans decreased by 5.63 percent at Agrani Bank, 1.54 percent at Janata and 0.30 percent at Rupali, in the second quarter, according to BB statistics.
However, bad loans rose 3.53 percent at Sonali Bank.
A Janata Bank official said they have taken various steps to recover the default loans, which led to a fall in such loans.
Sonali Bank also took similar moves that boosted their loan recovery, an official of the bank said.
Pradip Kumar Dutta, managing director of Sonali, said they realised default loans worth around Tk 2,300 crore in the last six months.
Of the amount, around Tk 250 crore came from top 20 defaulters, Dutta said.
However, the official said the amount of their default loans rose as Tk 642 crore lent to Bangladesh Sugar and Food Industries Corporation became classified.
"Apart from this, the overall default loan situation has improved due to an intensive recovery drive," he said.
In the second quarter, the amount of default loans rose by Tk 1,732 crore at private banks -- the highest among all types of banks.
Of 30 private banks, except the new ones, default loans at 16 rose by 0.03-9.73 percentage points.
However, the amount of such loans fell by 0.08-1.55 percentage points at the rest 14 banks.
Officials of the private banks blamed the rise in their default loans on political unrest, a dull business environment and new loan provisioning rules of the central bank.
Foreign commercial banks saw their default loans go up by Tk 30 crore, and specialised banks by Tk 78 crore.