The central bank has asked the commercial banks to gear up their recovery drive to ensure collection of instalments of rescheduled loans properly.
All banks have also been asked to set up recovery units for strengthening collection of such loans as per schedule.
The instruction was issued at a meeting of bankers, held in the Bangladesh Bank (BB) Tuesday with its Governor Atiur Rahman in the chair.
"We've asked the banks to ensure monitoring and supervision of rescheduled loans using their own ways for sustaining the existing default loan situation in the country's banking sector," BB Deputy S K Sur Chowdhury told reporters after the meeting.
The BB's instruction came against the backdrop of declining trend of classified loans recently following relaxation of the loan rescheduling policy.
The amount of classified loans decreased by more than 5.0 per cent to Tk 405.83 billion in December 2013 from Tk 427.25 billion a year ago, according to the BB statistics.
On December 23, the central bank relaxed the loan rescheduling policy for the next six months to facilitate financing for the businesses, affected by political unrest.
"We'll also send our inspection team to the banks for looking into different aspects of the rescheduled loans, if necessary," the deputy governor said.
Mr. Sur also said the banks have been instructed for taking effective measures so that the amount of classified loans does not increase further.
The bankers, however, assured the BB officials that they are activating their recovery mechanisms as per the central bank's requirement to expedite such drives across the country.
"We've already strengthened our recovery drive at branch, zone and head office level for collection of instalments of the rescheduled loans as per schedule," Mohammad Abdul Mannan, chief executive officer and managing director of the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited, told the FE.
At the meeting, the banks were asked for taking necessary measures to bring down their overall capital market investment within 25 per cent of total capital by July 21, 2016 to minimise risks in investment portfolios.
"We've advised the bankers to adjust their capital market exposures gradually without hindering the activities of the market," the deputy governor explained.
The meeting also discussed different issues including implementation of real time gross settlement (RTGS), submission of annual audited financial statement, settlement of acceptance bills and implantation of the second pillar of Basel-II.
"We're now working to introduce the RTGS system by July 2015 to facilitate business activities across the country," Mr Sur said while replying to a query.
India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka have already introduced the RTGS to provide speedy services for high-value transactions by businessmen, according to the BB officials.
