Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
Farmers Bank Ltd (FBL) has failed to pay matured term deposits worth Tk 38 crore belonging to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
In this context, the country’s telecom regulator sought Finance Ministry’s intervention to speed up the release of its money through a letter on January 11.
The letter, addressed to the Finance Minister AMA Muhith, says BTRC kept Tk 38 crore term deposits with five branches of FBL for one-year maturity of various interest rates. It has been kept under the Section 21 (4) of Telecom Act.
Of the amount, BTRC deposited Tk 11.40 crore each at the bank’s Basundhara and Imamganj branch and Tk 5.40 crore each at Gulshan, Mirpur and Motijheel branches.
The fixed deposits got matured on December 31 last year and BTRC thereby applied to get back the money with accumulated interest (Tk 59.47 lakh) through pay orders on January 3 this year. But the bank failed to pay back.
The latest disclosure came at a time when the cash-strapped bank is consistently failing to pay back deposits held by other institutions and individuals.
Over the last few months, the Farmers Bank was unable to pay a matured fixed deposit of Tk 220.70 crore of Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund, Tk 10 crore of Ansar-VDP Unnayan Bank, in addition to failing to repay inter-bank short-term loans of about Tk 700 crore to four other banks.
Even, it twice failed to honour a cheque worth Tk 35.44 crore presented earlier by Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd (BTCL). BTCL finally got back its deposit on November 13 last year.
Admitting the matter, a high official of BTRC official told The New Nation yesterday that they sent a letter in the second week of this month asking to make payment of the fixed deposit with accrued interest. But it did not respond.
“As the bank failed to pay, we approached the ministry requesting their intervention in this regard,” he added.
FBL has been going through severe liquidity crisis due to aggressive banking, loan irregularities, gross mismanagement and undue interference by previous board of the bank led by its former Chairman Dr Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir.
He recently stepped down from his post in a major reshuffle in the bank’s board in line with desire the central bank which provided Tk 96 crore to the Farmers Bank through repo.
The Farmers Bank secured licence along with eight other banks in June 2013.
Bangladesh Bank (BB) earlier found large loan irregularities at various branches of the bank questioning its solvency within just four years after its operation. It has forced the bank to go for costly inter-bank borrowing and deposit collection at high interest rates further deepening the crisis.
As of September, the bank’s weighted average interest rate on deposits stood at 8.79 percent in contrast to the average banking rates of 4.9 percent.
The bank borrowed Tk124 crore from inter-bank call money market and the amount is being rolled.
As of August, the bank’s total deposits amounted to Tk 5,170 crore and loan portfolio Tk 4,854 crore.
Earlier, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Ministry of Finance expressed grave concern at the deteriorating financial health of the bank terming it as “risky” for the banking sector in the country.
