After five months, banks’ operations to return to normal from Wednesday

After nearly five months, banks will run their full-scale operations again.

This is because the Bangladesh Bank has withdrawn its instruction for the financial institutions to operate on a limited scale–to help the government efforts in curbing the spread of Covid-19.

So from Wednesday, all banks' employees will have to be present at their workplaces.

In a circular on Tuesday, the financial regulator asked banks to provide usual, uninterrupted banking services from now on.

An official of the Bangladesh Bank told The Business Standard, "In short, we are moving to return banking activities to normal again."

The central bank, on March 22, days after the novel coronavirus was detected in  the country, instructed banks to make rosters for their employees to continue their banking activities on a limited scale during the pandemic.

In the latest amendment to that instruction, the central bank has also withdrawn some extra facilities of special leave for bank employees who test positive for Covid-19. Previously, the central bank had said that the leave would be counted as an office day.

However, in the latest instruction, the central bank said from now Covid-19 positive bank employees cannot come to the office and their absence will be counted as a regular leave, instead of sick leave.

The instruction comes at a time when Bangladesh confirmed 46 more deaths from the novel coronavirus in the last 24 hours till 8am on Tuesday.

The country's death toll from the virus now stands at 3,740, read a press release issued by the Directorate General of Health Services.

In the last 24 hours, 3,200 people tested positive for Covid-19 and the number of novel coronavirus cases in the country now stands at 282,344.