BB starts probe into two local Islami banks' links

FE Team | Published: July 19, 2012 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
The central bank of Bangladesh has started looking into the US Senate report which named two Bangladeshi banks aiding terror financing.
When Bangladesh Bank (BB) governor Dr Atiur Rahman's attention was drawn to the report, he said Wednesday, "The BB is going through the full report and analysing the allegation against the two Bangladeshi Islami banks."
He was talking to journalists after launching of the new monetary policy for next six months (July-December 2012).
The US Senate report suspected involvement of the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) and the Social Islami Bank Limited alongside the global banking giant HSBC in terror financing.
Dr Atiur Rahman said, "The country's export and import business could be affected, if the allegation against those two Islami banks is found true. So we will take necessary action against them."
The central bank was actively working on devising means to stop recurrence of similar incidence in the future, he added.
However, it was an old issue. "But always we remain active so that this kind of incident doesn't happen in the future again," he said.
The BB governor also said, "We have taken a tough stand on money laundering by building our capacity. Bangladesh's position is better at the global stage in terms of controlling money laundering. We will soon procure anti-money laundering software."
Senior consultant and BB governor's adviser Allah Malik Kazemi, senior economic adviser Dr Hasan Zaman, deputy governor SK Sur Chowdhury and Nazneen Sultana were also present.
Deputy governor SK Sur Chowdhury said, "It's an old issue, of 2005-2007 and the BB has done whatever necessary giving due importance to the issue. We'll do whatever we need within the ambit of laws of the country."
A US investigation has found that indifference on the part of the US division of the big international bank HSBC allowed some banks in Bangladesh to aid terror financing for militant outfits such as Al-Qaida.
The US Senate's Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations has said after a year-long probe into the affairs of global banking giant HSBC that it has provided banking services to some lenders in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh which might have helped funding to Al-Qaida and various other terrorist groups.
The US Senate panel accused the HSBC of revealing the country's financial system to groups involved in terror financing, drug trafficking activities and money laundering in billions of dollars due to poor risk control management at the bank.
Apart from the two banks in Bangladesh, the HSBC has indulged in various questionable transactions with entities from other countries like Saudi Arabia, Korea, Syria, Mexico, Iran, Cuba, Sudan, Cayman Islands, Myanmar, Russia and Japan.