Five state-owned banks sought over Tk 100 billion initially from government to meet their capital shortfalls measured by the Basel-II standard, officials said.
The appeal from the capital-strapped banks was made at a review meeting of the banks with Bank and Financial Institutions Division (BFID) of Finance Ministry last week.
Amaleendu Mukherjee, additional secretary of the BFID, was in the chair at the meeting that did a stocktaking of the latest state of financial health of the state banks.
The public banks facing capital shortfalls are Sonali Bank Limited, Rupali Bank Limited, BASIC Bank Limited, Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) and Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank (RAKUB).
"It's a preliminary meeting. We'll take decision after reviewing their (banks) business planning," a senior official of the Finance Ministry told the FE Monday.
He also said the government would take decision on recapitalisation of the state-run banks in the context its budgetary resource constraints.
At the meeting, the public banks have been asked to submit their latest information on capital shortfalls as early as possible.
 "We've submitted our projection on capital shortfall to the ministry considering the figures of April-June period of the calendar year," a senior official of a leading state-owned commercial bank (SoCB) told the FE, without elaborating.
As of June 30 this calendar year, the capital shortfall of the BKB stood at Tk 59.98 billion followed by BASIC Bank with Tk 16.75 billion, Sonali Bank Tk 15.11 billion, RAKUB Tk 6.50 billion and Rupali Bank Tk 2.17 billion.
The central bankers think most of the sate-owned banks' capital shortfalls may rise further in the July-September period following an upturn in their classified loans.
 "The capital shortfalls of Sonali Bank and BASIC Bank will go up in the third quarter of the current calendar year due to the higher volumes of non-performing loans (NPLs)," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE.
The BB earlier had recommended that the BFID arrange recapitulation funds to improve the financial health of the BKB and the RAKUB.
 "It's necessary for improving the country's banking-sector image across the world," the central banker explained.
The capital-adequacy ratio (CAR) of the country's banking sector had improved significantly in the fourth quarter of the last calendar year following injection of funds worth Tk 41 billion by the government to four SoCBs.
For the current fiscal year (FY) 2014-15, the government has made a budgetary allocation of Tk 50 billion as recapitalisation support to the public banks.
The CAR of all banks rose to 11.52 per cent, as on December 31 last year, from 9.14 per cent in the third quarter of the last year, the BB data showed.
But it took a downturn from the first quarter of this calendar year-- and the decline continued until the second quarter.
The CAR of all banks came down to 10.68 per cent as on June 30 last from 11.32 per cent of the previous quarter of the ongoing calendar year.
The banking sector faced an aggregate capital shortfall of Tk 8.48 billion in the first half of 2014 against the required capital of Tk 645.42 billion, according to the World Bank's latest Bangladesh Development Update.
The BB earlier fixed the CAR at minimum 10 per cent as part of the preparation for implementing the Basel-III in the banking sector in 2014, according to the central bankers.
Under the Basel-II provision, the standard requirement of the CAR is minimum 8.00 per cent. Bangladesh is now implementing the Basel-II accord to consolidate the capital base of banks in line with the international standards.
It has been prepared on the basis of three pillars: minimum capital requirement, supervisory review process and market discipline.
Three types of risks - credit risk, market risk and operational risk - have to be considered under the minimum capital requirement.
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