Mobile Banking Agents under BB scanner

Agents of mobile financial services (MFS) are themselves actively involved in various kinds of criminal activities, including collection of ransom by human trafficking, extortion, and fraud by maintenance of several hundred false or real accounts, according to a report titled ‘Impact of Mobile Banking on Financial Inclusion in Bangladesh’, released by the Bangladesh Bank (BB) recently. It is very easy to open an MFS account with a fake identity, the report said, adding that money laundering is mostly conducted through mobile accounts registered with fake identities. “Over the-counter (OTC) transactions have become a widely practiced irregularity in the MFS sector in Bangladesh, which is a serious problem, and is considered the root of many evils in this sector. This also causes agents to charge customers illegally,” the report said. About competition and market share, the BB said bKash currently dominates the MFS space, accounting for 55.11 per cent of the market followed by DBBL (38.26 per cent). The rest of the 11 providers with live services currently account for around 6.63 per cent of the total market share. According to the BB’s reports, at the beginning of 2013, the total number of agents was 60,000. At the end of September 2015, this figure crossed 542,400. This large differential highlights the rapid growth of this space in a very short time. In terms of agent numbers, bKash is the market leader, followed by DBBL. It is seen that only 2 per cent of agents are female while 49 per cent of the agents work in the rural areas. The BB found that 71 per cent of the MFS users have access to an agent within 1 km. In contrast, only 19 per cent of bank account holders have a bank branch within the same distance.

Source: http://www.theindependentbd.com/post/86524

BB to get report on fall in remittance

Two delegations of Bangladesh Bank (BB) returned home yesterday after visiting Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Malaysia to find out reasons of downward trend in country’s remittance inflow, reports BSS . The teams will submit their findings soon to BB Governor Fazle Kabir, a BB official told BSS. “The two teams have already returned home. We are preparing a report after analysing the findings of our investigation,” said BB Economic Advisor Dr M Aktharuzzaman, who led one of the two teams. As the falling trend of the inflow of remittances is becoming a matter of concern for the country, two teams of experts of BB went to Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Malaysia to find out the reasons behind the declining trend of remittances. BB economic advisor Dr M Akhtaruzzaman led a three-member team and General Manager of BB Governor’s Secretariat Dr M Habibur Rahman led another three-member team. Aktharuzzaman said, during the visit, they met with many Non-Resident Bangladeshis (NRBs), including workers, doctors, engineers, accountants and many other professionals, at Mecca, Riyadh and Jeddah and tried to find out the reasons behind the declining trend of remittance inflow. “We discussed with them through meetings and spot discussions, especially in marketplaces or workplaces,” he added.

Source: http://www.theindependentbd.com/printversion/details/86450

Govt sits tomorrow to review its anti-money laundering efforts

The government is likely to sit tomorrow (Thursday) to review the country’s ongoing anti-money laundering (AML) and anti-terrorist financing efforts aiming to adopt effective strategies in this regard, officials said. One of the key agendas of the meeting is to review the progress on an action plan which was prepared as per the recommendations made by the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) after reviewing the third round mutual evaluation (ME), they added. Besides, implementation progress on memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) and law enforcement agencies and regulatory agencies will come up for review in the meeting, they mentioned. The third round ME on Bangladesh was accepted in an annual meeting of APG held in October last. A deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank (BB) and head of BFIU presented the action plan in the meeting of the National Coordination committee (NCC) on anti-money laundering (AML) and anti-terrorist financing. The meeting was held on October 31 with the finance minister in the chair.

Source: http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2017/03/21/64972/Govt-sits-tomorrow-to-review-its-anti-money-laundering-efforts

Disbursement of farm loans grows by 22pc

Agriculture loan disbursement grew by more than 22 per cent or Tk 25.53 billion in the first eight months of this fiscal year (FY) than that of the same period of last FY due to a higher demand for the credit during the ongoing boro season, officials said. The disbursement rose to Tk 139.29 billion in the July-February period of the FY 2016-17 from Tk 113.76 billion in same period of FY2015-16, according to the latest statistics of Bangladesh Bank (BB). Of the amount, eight state-owned banks (SoBs) disbursed Tk 65.04 billion while the remaining Tk 74.25 billion by the private commercial banks (PCBs) and foreign commercial banks (FCBs). All the scheduled banks have already achieved 79.37 per cent of their collective farm loan target for the current FY, which was set at Tk 175.50 billion, the BB data showed. The central bank is set to review the credit disbursement and recovery performances of the eight SoBs by the end of this month, according to a senior official of the BB. He said the public banks will be advised at the meeting to boost the recovery drives in the coming months. The recovery of farm loans, however, rose to Tk 123.16 billion during the period under the review from Tk 107.55 billion in the same period of the last FY.

Source: http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2017/03/21/64980/Disbursement-of-farm-loans-grows-by-22pc

Bonds not to be issued against banks’ capital shortfall

Finance Division has rejected the proposal of issuing bonds worth Tk4,100 crore for three state-run banks including BASIC Bank to meet their capital shortfalls. Other two banks, Janata and Rupali, sought subordinated bond of Tk1,000 crore and Tk500 crore respectively for sever-year period. However, Finance Division didn’t say anything about issuing of bond of Tk22 lakh for Grameen Bank. The decisions came at a meeting on capital shortfalls of seven state-run banks. Finance Minister AMA Muhith presided over the meeting. Officials who attending the meeting said the government liabilities would increase if they met the banks’ capital shortfalls from bonds. An official said Bangladesh Bank has been asked to prepare a report on BASIC Bank that how the bank utilised Tk2,300 crore in last two and a half years to meet its capital shortfall. BASIC Bank was not able to reduce the non-performing loans and its liquidity fund reached Tk1,500 crore. A Finance Division official said most of funds were utilised to buy government bonds. He said the BASIC authorities didn’t try to give loans to the “real businessmen” for earning more profit. At the meeting, BASIC Bank representative revealed the provision requirement of the bank and hoped to halve the figure to Tk2,100 crore over the next five years. The provisioning requirement of the bank as of December 2014 was Tk4,297crore, which came down to Tk3,858 crore in December 2015.

Source: http://www.dhakatribune.com/business/banks/2017/03/22/bonds-not-issued-banks-capital-shortfall/

Meghna Bank looks to launch new mobile services by October

Meghna Bank Limited is going to introduce chip-based card for mobile financial services for the first time in Bangladesh by the end of October this year, the bank’s top executive said. “We’re still working to launch new mobile financial services in Bangladesh by third week of October 2016 aiming to bring more unbanked people into the banking network,” Mohammed Nurul Amin, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the fourth-generation bank, told the FE. Mr. Amin also said, “We’ll initially offer person-to-person (P2P) payments among our clients across the country.” Currently, Meghna Bank is running its business with 32 branches across the country. The goal of this project is to launch different mobile financial services, including disbursement of inward remittance, person to business (P2B) payments, business to person (B2P) payments and person to government (P2G) payments and government to person (G2P) payments, which will be offered subject to approval from the Bangladesh Bank (BB) and all other relevant regulatory bodies, said the bank’s top boss. “These services will allow use of mobile phone technology to send and receive monetary value electronically through their own mobile handsets or NFC (Near Field Communications) Tag or Tap Card or through authorised outlets across the country,” the senior banker explained.

Source : http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2016/09/22/46858/Meghna-Bank-looks-to-launch-new-mobile-services-by-October

Banking sector accounts for 41.30pc of total turnover

The country’s premier bourse closed Tuesday’s session with a moderate rise following investors’ participation in banks and financial institutions. On the day, most of the major sectors witnessed correction but the market bounced back depending investors’ increased participation in banks. At the end of the session, the DSE broad index DSEX rose 0.51 per cent or 29.13 points to close at 5724.85 points. According to a market review of EBL Securities, the market started with an uptrend on Tuesday and buoyancy frenzy from prudent investors managed to keep the broad index above 5700 points. The shariah-based index DSES shed 0.36 per cent or 4.76 points to close at 1300.43 points, whereas the blue chip DS30 went up by 0.21 per cent or 4.37 points to close at 2065 points. Of 326 issues traded, 129 advanced, 169 declined and 28 were unchanged. A total of above 0.173606 million trades were executed in Tuesday’s trading session generating a turnover of above Tk 12.63 billion with trading volume of 439.37 million securities, according to LankaBangla Finance.

Source:
http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2017/03/21/64964/Banking-sector-accounts-for-41.30pc-of-total-turnover
http://www.thedailystar.net/business/dse-turnover-surges-bank-shares-1379401