5-bank merger: Stock investors threaten to lay siege on Bangladesh Bank if governor doesn’t resign

A group of share market investors has given Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur until Saturday to resign over the merger of five banks, saying the consolidation robs small investors of their savings.

The demand was announced at a press briefing after trading hours today (6 November) in front of the old Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) building in the capital's Motijheel area.

The group, under the banner of the Bangladesh Capital Market Investors' Unity Council, also warned that it would besiege the Bangladesh Bank headquarters next Tuesday if the governor does not step down.

"We will not accept this merger. Investors have done nothing wrong. These banks were listed with approval from the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission, and people invested their hard-earned money in them. But by forcing this merger, investors are being left empty-handed," the council's president, Mizanur Rashid Chowdhury, told The Business Standard.

"We want the governor to resign. He is pushing through bank mergers without considering investors. If he does not step down by Saturday, we will surround the Bangladesh Bank office on Tuesday," he said, adding that investors will lose everything if this continues.

"This mockery of a merger must stop," he added.

The investors' protest comes at a time when the boards of the five troubled Islamic banks set for merger have been dissolved and administrators appointed — marking the first concrete step in the government's long-awaited clean-up of the sector.

Although the full merger process is expected to take about two years, the Bangladesh Bank has assured that small depositors (up to Tk2 lakh) will be able to withdraw their funds within a month, while large depositors will receive theirs in phases.

For retail shareholders, however, the news is grim — they will receive nothing despite the banks being publicly listed. Bondholders, meanwhile, are expected to recover their funds.