The government of Bangladesh owns 51 percent of the company, while Sonali Bank Ltd holds the remaining 49 percent share. As the government has a lion’s share of this bank, the government cannot evade core responsibility and should take remedial steps against the bank officials responsible for the scams at the overseas branch of the bank. In 2010, the UK based financial watchdog – FCA warned the SB, UK to develop a system for preventing money laundering. Despite the warning, SB, UK failed to develop and enforce the systematic operational mode of preventing money laundering. The decision of the UK financial watchdog was right as it found serious systemic weaknesses that affected almost all levels of its anti-money laundering control and governance structure including its senior management team, money laundering reporting function, oversight of branches and AML policies and procedures. Such short-comings of a state-owned bank abroad are deeply regrettable and must be dealt with strongly. It is very alarming for the expatriates living in UK as the FCA has imposed a restriction preventing the bank from accepting deposits from new customers for 24 weeks. It may pose a serious threat to the economy of the country because this branch of SB, UK deals with a big chunk of remittance transactions of Bangladeshi expatriates.
SB, UK has been fined at a time when the country’s banking sector is witnessing a spectrum of fund heist (from BB Reserve), default and non-performing loans, money laundering etc. Slapping fine on SB, UK has deepened the crisis of banking sector as a whole, which is hardly recoverable.
Besides, SB, UK’s negligence is really serious one as it did not conduct routine screening of its customers list to identify politically exposed persons (PEPs) until 2014, as the report said.
Experts said that maintaining transactions in favour of PEPs without exercising due diligence has to be considered as gross financial misconducts of the bank officials involved. It is a big threat to the banking operation abroad. Some sources doubt that there might have political connection. In this instant suit, the Ministry concerned should drive stringently to find out the causes of the negligence of responsible officials of SB, UK and fix them accordingly. Irregularities from banking sector must go for saving the banks of Bangladesh and their clients, including that of Sonali Bank, UK.
