Finance Minister AMA Muhith hinted Thursday at the possibility of offloading shares of state-owned commercial banks (SoBs) to bring them under private partnership.
"Like in Rupali Bank Limited, steps will also be taken to introduce private partnership in the three other SoBs," he said.
The process of share-offloading in the those state-owned banks will begin during the present tenure of the government, the minister added.
Mr Muhith said the separate pay scales for the staff of Bangladesh Bank (BB) and the SoBs would be announced shortly.
"After the proposed pay scales' vetting by the law ministry, the finance ministry is now working on issuing a final notification in this respect," he mentioned.
The minister was speaking at the inaugural session of the annual conference 2014 of Janata Bank Limited (JBL) at a city hotel. Chairman of the bank Dr Abul Barakat presided over the event.
Differing with the Finance Minister's view on taking private partnership for the SoBs, the JBL chairman observed that it would be a wrong decision.
"The World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) want it, but we should not take such decisions as it will help a small class of people enjoy financial facilities," he said.
Expressing concern over some 'incidents' in SoB branches, the finance minister emphasised improving security of vaults and 'store rooms' at all banks.
"The security of vaults and 'store rooms' must be increased, and all banks should take the matter into serious consideration," he said.
The finance minister said the government has increased the surveillance of the banks after the loan scam by the Hall-Mark Group and all banks are getting benefits of this precaution.
"The banking system is still not out of corruption, and we are taking punitive actions if we get any allegation of graft and mismanagement," he said.
State Minister for Finance MA Mannan, who was present at the event as special guest, stressed increase in the use of technology as a means to check corruption.
"If the use of technology is increased, the incidents of corruption is bound to drop," he said.
JBL chairman Prof Barakat said the bank had earned a net profit of about Tk 9.0 billion in 2013, and the profit would reach Tk 13 billion if the time-value used to implement different government projects were counted.
"We implement the various activities of the safety net programme of the government, and it is totally a voluntary service," he said.
Dr Barakat said the number of loss-incurring branches of the bank had decreased from 84 to 43 last year, and the amount of corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes reached Tk 350 million, which was only 2.5 million in 2009.
Managing Director of the bank SM Aminur Rahman assured the clients of ensuring better services in the coming days.
Officials said the classified loan of the bank dropped 6.30 per cent in 2013, which is now 11.12 per cent. The investment growth of the bank was 78.39 per cent last year, which is about Tk 84.94 billion more than the previous year, they added.
The total asset of JBL reached Tk 586.08 billion by increasing 14.66 per cent in the last year.
Including four overseas ones, the total number of branches of the bank is 897. Of the local branches, almost half are located in rural areas, the officials informed.
Directors of the bank Md. Emdadul Hoque, Nagibul Islam Dipu, Dr. R M Debnath, Syed Bazlul Karim, BPM, Prof Mohammed Moinuddin, Md Abu Naser, Sangita Ahmed, Dr Nitai Chandra Nag, AKM Kamrul Islam, FCA, and Md Mahabubur Rahman Hiron were present, among others, at the programme.
