Business Desk :
The Bangladesh Association of Banks (BAB) at a meeting on Thursday sought the support of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) to bring down the lending rate to single digit from July 1.
The meeting was held at the central bank headquarters in the city with BB Governor Fazle Kabir in the chair. A 13-member BAB delegation, led by its chairman Nazrul Islam Mazumder, attended the meeting, a BB official said. He said the BAB leaders informed the governor of their decision formally and sought support of the central bank officials to lower the interest rates.
On Wednesday, BAB decided to bring down the lending rate to single digit and deposit rate of three-month tenure to six percent from next month (July 1).
BAB took the decision as per instruction of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for accelerating the country’s development activities. Earlier in April, the government slashed cash reserve requirement or CRR of banks by one percentage point to 5.5 percent for the benefit of private commercial banks. Finance minister AMA Muhith has also proposed to reduce the corporate tax rate for banks and financial institutions (FIs) by 2.5 percent in the budget for FY19.
