Dr. Atiur Rahman
Governor, Bangladesh Bank :
In recent years, you may have noticed Bangladesh Bank has strategically lengthened its policy horizon through various initiatives. In addition to ensuring the traditional focus on macro-financial stability, BB has emphasized a sustainable and inclusive central banking agenda. The goal is to have higher and better quality growth that can lift all Bangladeshis, ensuring social cohesion and empowerment, while protecting the environment.
The banking sector in Bangladesh has grown many folds since independence in 1971, accompanied by steady and inclusive growth. The sector has undergone successive rounds of major structural and regulatory reforms, supporting the emergence of a vibrant private sector.
BB has steered this transformation by promoting market-based principles and macro-financial stability. Recognizing that the conventional short-term business cycle focused monetary and financial policy had failed to address the longer term needs of inclusivity and environmental sustainability, BB stepped up its initiatives to create a deliberate directional bias in shifting financing away from speculative and unsustainable investment towards an IT-enabled inclusive financing agenda.
These multifaceted initiatives are creating job-rich investment and growth for the un-served and under-served, reducing inequality and fostering social cohesion and empowerment, in line with the original dreams conceived in 1971 of Bangladesh.
Our sustained growth, underpinned by social inclusion and with an emphasis on our environment, has made us a global role model, as recognized by the UN, IMF and WB.
The modernization of the payments system and financial IT infrastructure, including online credit information, supervisory reporting, BACH, BEFTN, NPS, NID-based KYC, and most recently the RTGS have spawned an exponential growth of mobile phone banking, benefitting the underserved poor. Rapid digitization in banking has enabled MFS and will further encourage women’s participation in the financial services.
We are all aware that the most vital challenge of our time is to save the world from environmental disaster. BB has taken the lead in promoting eco-friendly innovations like harnessing solar energy, biogas, effluent treatment plant and Hybrid Hoffman Kiln for the brickfields as well as generating electricity from biogas, employing solar irrigation pumps and encouraging the banks to finance setting up of solar energy panels in households and business establishments. These initiatives will make our journey towards a higher middle income country smooth.
Distinguished participants, let me highlight a few issues related to supervision. In the backdrop of current internal control practices in some banks, BB has started introducing strategic changes in its existing supervision techniques for ensuring financial stability.
To promote good corporate governance, monitoring has been enhanced in the areas of responsibility and accountability of the board. Internal control structures are being strengthened and the process of risk identification, measurement and mitigation streamlined to move closer to the international best practices.
With our extensive digitization initiatives, it is expected that the existing and potential loopholes would be effectively addressed.
Ladies and gentlemen, our movement towards a sustainable and inclusive banking ethos is deepening the foundation of our macro-financial stability. We are now reaping the synergies between financial deepening, inclusion and stability.
There’s an old African proverb that says “If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” Financial deepening, inclusion, and stability is our common journey. And that means we all move to move together. And quickly.
