BSS, Dhaka :
Bangladesh Bank (BB) has taken initiatives to formulate an outsourcing policy for the banks prioritising the issue of money laundering.
The central bank is preparing the policy to bring the third party services into a frame, which would help the regulator to avert risks of fraudulent as well as screening the compliance of regulatory directives.
Meanwhile, a draft of the policy has been sent to the chief executives of the banks seeking their opinions on it by May 15.
The draft policy stipulates that the banks would not be allowed to hire third party for the core banking management including internal audit, control, compliance and treasury functions, know your customer (kyc), credit evaluation and sanctioning.
Talking to BSS, Mahfuzur Rahman, spokesperson of the central bank, said the BB has taken the initiative for the first time in the country to protect the customers from any fraudulence of the third party.
“The banks usually receive credit card, SME service centre, mobile banking, agent banking, consumer loan distribution and few other services from the third party. So, the banks have to take the responsibility if the clients are cheated by the outsourcing providers,” he added.
Rahman hoped the policy would mitigate the risk of fraudulence of the customers significantly.
BB officials said the banks could only outsource the services which they could run effectively with own supervision.
The draft policy says that any sub-contract by the third-party for providing services both in case of local and foreign firms is not allowed. According to the draft policy, the banks must develop own outsourcing criteria approved by the board of directors.
Prior to the selection, they (banks) have to assess the third party’s capacity and ability to perform the outsourced activities effectively, reliably and with high standard, together with any potential risk factors associated with using a particular service provider.
“The Board of directors of the banks has the responsibility to ensure that the outsourcing policy is complied properly,” said the draft policy.
It also said the banks should take appropriate steps with regard to service providers to protect confidential information of both the bank and its clients from intentional or inadvertent disclosure to unauthorised persons.
BB official said the trend of outsourcing is being increased globally among the banks for trimming down the operational cost, which is also posing the risk of fraudulence.
Apart from the credit card and agent banking, the banks at present are outsourcing IT software development, loan recollection from defaulter, documentation, human resource collection and training etc. from the local and foreign firms.
