BSS, Dhaka :
Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr Atiur Rahman said short-termism was one of the root causes of the global financial crisis which originated in the advanced economies.
The governor’s observation came in the Ethics and Finance session of the high level IMF Conference on Future of Finance, held on Sunday at George Washington University at Washington DC, according to a release of BB issued here today.
He said the BB recognized early on the danger of the “greed driven short-termism” and responded strategically with initiative of ingraining greater socially and environmentally responsible inclusive, sustainable financing ethos.
“This motivational drive for financial inclusion helped maintain not only stability of the sector but was also deemed to be ethical by the ordinary people of the country,” the governor said.
Beginning with opening remarks from David Lipton, First Deputy Managing Director of IMF, the session was moderated by Sean Hagan, General Counsel and Director of the IMF Legal Department.
The other panelists of the session included Mark Carney, Governor, Bank of England, Philipp Hildebrand, Vice-Chair, BlackRock Inc., Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, IMF, Kok-Song Ng, GIC Chair of Global Investments and The Most Reverend Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Dr. Atiur said that growth generated by mainstream global trends of conventional financing continue to remain inequitable and largely indifferent to environmental degradation concerns; despite urgencies of shift to equitable and environmentally sustainable options echoing loudly everywhere, including in the advanced economies.
In 2008, BB launched the campaign of sensitizing financial sector towards its social and environmental obligations and in motivating banks and financial institutions into spontaneous engagements in inclusive, environmentally sustainable financing as integral parts of their community engagements fulfilling their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) obligations.
The governor said to provide the financial sector an enabling environment for inclusive, sustainability focused financing a number of support initiatives were undertaken, including a massive modernization of financial sector IT infrastructure facilitating mobile phone and smart card for cost efficient off branch financial services delivery, issuance of guidelines for environmental risk assessment of financing proposals, low cost refinance support lines against farm and non-farm SME financing and green financing, facilitating regional clustering of SMEs to facilitate networking and value chain interlinking and so forth.
Both the IMF Managing Director and Reverend Archbishop of Canterbury lauded the inclusive financing strategy, particularly the regulatory support to mobile financial services in Bangladesh which has been helping greater access to finance at the bottom of the pyramid.
