Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
A total of 200 companies are now holding 60 per cent of the total default loans in four state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) for which the banks have become literally hostages to those influential defaulters, sources said.
According to a central bank statistics, the amount of default loans in the Sonali, the Janata, the Agrani and the Rupali Banks stands at Tk 19,719.21 crore as on June 30 this year and the amount of the overdue loans payable by those companies is Tk 11,831.52 crore.
As on December 31 last year, the SCBs default loans amount was Tk 16,066.25 crore.
Officials of Bangladesh Bank (BB) said, when the SCBs are burdened with such huge amount of overdue loans payable by the said companies, the banks reportedly sanctioned fresh loans to them under political consideration.
“Authorities of the SCBs are disbursing fresh loans to the same companies despite their poor credit records. They might be involved in this illegal practice under the pressure of a ‘powerful quarter,” a senior BB official
told The New Nation on Thursday preferring anonymity.
He said that In many cases, the authorities of the state-run banks sanctioned loans to the top defaulters violating the rules relating to single borrower’s exposure limit.
Referring to a provision of the Bank Company Act 1991, he also said, the outstanding amount of loan to a single individual, counterparty, company or a group of persons will not exceed 35 per cent of the capital of a bank. “But, the SCBs have disbursed loans to borrowers at 40 to 45 per cent of the size of their capital,” he added.
The BB official further said, “We have has asked the SCBs to decrease their single borrower exposure limit in the shortest possible time and speed up their recovery of default loans from the companies as well as their top borrowers.”
As part of the task, the central bank has also fixed the annual loan recovery targets for the banks and kept pressure on them to achieve the targets, he said.
When asked, he said, the central bank warned of punitive action against the banks if they further disbursed loans to defaulters.
On top of this, the central bank has prepared a report on the state-owned commercial banks in which it highlighted their present their financial condition and overall governance picture.
“We have sent the report to the ministry concerned for its appraisal,” he said, adding, “BB in its report expressed concern over the declining financial health of the SCBs.”
The BB official also said that as the rising default, bad and non-performing loans in the SCBs is leading them to acute capital shortfall and affecting their lending activities, the ministry concerned has requested to take necessary steps to uplift the financial health of the banks.
“Side by side, it has asked to infuse dynamism in the management of the government controlled banks,” he added.
The central bank in its report provided a list of the 200 defaulted companies, firms business entities and also top individual borrowers of the SCBs with mentioning the defaulted amount.
Out of the total companies, nearly 100 are different categories manufacturing units, 58 garments factories and rest of them are state-owned entities.
The BB statistics also showed that out of the total default loans in the SCBs, Tk 10,559 crore are in Sonali Bank, Tk 3,895 crore in Agrani Bank, Tk 3,527 crore in Janata Bank and Tk 1,746 in Rupali Bank.
A total of 200 companies are now holding 60 per cent of the total default loans in four state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) for which the banks have become literally hostages to those influential defaulters, sources said.
According to a central bank statistics, the amount of default loans in the Sonali, the Janata, the Agrani and the Rupali Banks stands at Tk 19,719.21 crore as on June 30 this year and the amount of the overdue loans payable by those companies is Tk 11,831.52 crore.
As on December 31 last year, the SCBs default loans amount was Tk 16,066.25 crore.
Officials of Bangladesh Bank (BB) said, when the SCBs are burdened with such huge amount of overdue loans payable by the said companies, the banks reportedly sanctioned fresh loans to them under political consideration.
“Authorities of the SCBs are disbursing fresh loans to the same companies despite their poor credit records. They might be involved in this illegal practice under the pressure of a ‘powerful quarter,” a senior BB official
told The New Nation on Thursday preferring anonymity.
He said that In many cases, the authorities of the state-run banks sanctioned loans to the top defaulters violating the rules relating to single borrower’s exposure limit.
Referring to a provision of the Bank Company Act 1991, he also said, the outstanding amount of loan to a single individual, counterparty, company or a group of persons will not exceed 35 per cent of the capital of a bank. “But, the SCBs have disbursed loans to borrowers at 40 to 45 per cent of the size of their capital,” he added.
The BB official further said, “We have has asked the SCBs to decrease their single borrower exposure limit in the shortest possible time and speed up their recovery of default loans from the companies as well as their top borrowers.”
As part of the task, the central bank has also fixed the annual loan recovery targets for the banks and kept pressure on them to achieve the targets, he said.
When asked, he said, the central bank warned of punitive action against the banks if they further disbursed loans to defaulters.
On top of this, the central bank has prepared a report on the state-owned commercial banks in which it highlighted their present their financial condition and overall governance picture.
“We have sent the report to the ministry concerned for its appraisal,” he said, adding, “BB in its report expressed concern over the declining financial health of the SCBs.”
The BB official also said that as the rising default, bad and non-performing loans in the SCBs is leading them to acute capital shortfall and affecting their lending activities, the ministry concerned has requested to take necessary steps to uplift the financial health of the banks.
“Side by side, it has asked to infuse dynamism in the management of the government controlled banks,” he added.
The central bank in its report provided a list of the 200 defaulted companies, firms business entities and also top individual borrowers of the SCBs with mentioning the defaulted amount.
Out of the total companies, nearly 100 are different categories manufacturing units, 58 garments factories and rest of them are state-owned entities.
The BB statistics also showed that out of the total default loans in the SCBs, Tk 10,559 crore are in Sonali Bank, Tk 3,895 crore in Agrani Bank, Tk 3,527 crore in Janata Bank and Tk 1,746 in Rupali Bank.
