The central bank has sought explanation from 27 banks for providing the US dollar to 71 customers allegedly beyond the approved international credit-card limit.
The managing directors (MDs) and chief executive officers (CEOs) of the banks have been asked to submit their respective explanation to the department concerned of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) within five working days.
The BB issued a letter in this connection Sunday over the alleged excess lending to the cardholders from the banks.
Among the banks are two stated-owned commercial banks (SoCBs), two foreign commercial banks (FCBs) and the rest private commercial banks (PCBs).
The bankers facing the regulatory quizzing have lavished out to the cardholders the US currency amounting from US$12,500 to maximum $20,000 during the January-July period of the current calendar year, instead of maximum annual allocation of $12,000, according to the BB's initial findings.
However, transactions using international card grew nearly 88 per cent to $49.20 million in July 2022 from $26.18 million in January of this calendar year, the BB data showed.
The central bank had collected the information on credit-card transactions using its 'dashboard', the BB officials explained.
In 2013, the central bank launched an electronic system, generally known as 'dashboard', for monitoring all kinds of foreign-exchange transactions aiming to check fraud and forgery in the country's banking sector.
The dashboard provides different information on summary of export, import, inland back-to-back letter of credit (LC), inward and outward remittances separately with categorically separated details.
"We'll take the next course of action after receiving explanation from the banks," a top central banker told the FE Sunday while replying to a query.
He also said the government as well as the central bank is now working to ease the ongoing pressure on the economy through discouraging 'unnecessary' use of the US dollar.
Under the existing regulations, the authorised dealer (AD) banks are allowed to release foreign exchange to an adult Bangladeshi national during a calendar year up to $12,000 or equivalent, inter alia, for travel abroad without limiting to regions or countries of travel.
The time limit for annual travel quota is counted from January 01 to December 31.
However, cardholders can use an excess amount exceeding travel quota for unavoidable but bona-fide grounds.
The excess amounts can be adjusted by debit to RFCD (resident foreign currency deposit) accounts of travellers concerned.
Up to $500 or equivalent can be adjusted against the travel quota of the following year, according to a notification issued by the central bank on September 23, 2021.
The latest BB belt-tightening moves come against the backdrop of falling trend in the country's foreign-exchange reserves following higher import-payment obligations in recent months mainly due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
Bangladesh's forex reserves stood at $38.98 billion Sunday against $39.08 billion of the previous working day, according to latest official figures.
The reserves may come down further to more than $37 billion within this week after a routine payment worth $1.73 billion to the Asian Clearing Union (ACU) against imports made during the July-August period of 2022.
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