Cenbank, top bankers to discuss loan cases, recovery, dollar market updates

Bangladesh Bank Governor Abdur Rauf Talukder will meet with top executives of all banks on Sunday to discuss several issues including the progress of cases in Artha Rin Adalat (Financial Loan Court) and the universal use of Bangla QR code in cashless transactions.

Several officials of the central bank said the overall situation of the country's dollar market, the next monetary policy and the construction of a hospital for bankers will also be discussed in the meeting.

Since Artha Rin Adalat was formed in 2003 for easy recovery of defaulted loans, 2,22,348 cases were filed till December 2022. The cases involved Tk2,49,184 crores, which is Tk36,000 more than the same time the previous year.

Bankers said the meeting will discuss how to recover the money from these loans very quickly.

Earlier on 18 January, the cashless Bangladesh campaign was launched. At present, 10 banks, three MFS and three international payment schemes have participated in the Bangla QR initiative.

Bangla QR code payment system was launched recently to make all kinds of financial transactions from Mastercard, Credit Card, Debit or Prepaid Card through the app of specific banks. As a result, customers do not have to scan separate QR codes for different payment networks.

It will be discussed in Sunday's meeting how all the banks that have app-based services can be easily included in the Bangla QR code. In the last two and a half months, the central bank met several times with officials of the respective departments of these banks.

In the beginning, around 1,200 merchants in the capital's Motijheel started transactions using Bangla QR codes with customers through Bangla QR codes.

The central bank is going to launch this app-based transaction in four districts – Gopalganj, Rangpur, Gazipur and Natore.

There will be a discussion on the new monetary policy, to be launched in the last week of June for the July-December period of financial year 2024. The central bank will seek opinion from banks' chief executives in this regard.

The Bangladesh Bank has decided to introduce a benchmark lending rate, also known as a reference rate, lifting the current 9% rate cap in the following monetary policy, said central bank sources.

The benchmark rate will be changed every month based on market demand.

In the bankers' meeting on 16 June 2022, it was decided to build a separate hospital for bankers. The meeting will discuss the most convenient location in the capital for the hospital. The central bank has been working on the overall legal process for the construction of the hospital for the past nine months.