The World Bank has come forward with US$125 million in assistance for fortifying Bangladesh's state-owned banks (SoBs) against cybercrime, officials said, as recent heists undermined banking security systems.
Banking sector in the country is reeling from a chain of digital burglaries, both at home and abroad, including the stunning cyber-theft of Bangladesh Bank reserves from its account with the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
The Washington-based lender last week confirmed the government about providing the assistance through forwarding an aide-memoire.
In February this year, local and international hackers looted a significant amount of money from accounts of many customers through installing skimming devices in several ATM booths of private banks in the city.
Just as the shocks were troubling the country's banking sector, there came the bizarre discovery of a digital heist in which some people had stolen away $101 million reserve money from Bangladesh Bank's Fed account.
"The government felt the necessity of cyber security and the strengthening of SoBs' IT infrastructure and sought assistance from us much before the incidents of cyber heists. Now we are providing the money to help prevent such incidents in the future," a senior World Bank official told the FE. "This is a kind of most timely project for Bangladesh. The IT system of the public banks will get strong security from the initiative," he said.
The official said the World Bank has a similar project, namely Financial Sector Support Project, under which enhancement of central bank's cyber security is one of the many components.
He said the $350 million project started last October. "Had the project started timely and necessary cyber security-related works done earlier, the BB might not have faced such risk of reserve theft."
According to the aid-memo, the WB fielded a mission last February to finalise the project which will have four components.
The total $150 million project will support SOBs' business-process reengineering, modernisation of IT infrastructures, including strengthening cyber security, and supporting institutional development of SoBs and the ministry of finance in enhancing ownership oversight and corporate-governance framework.
presently, eight SoBs have programmes and annual targets of implementation of core banking system (CBS) while the rest, the Ansar VDP Bank, has no such target.
Statistics show that until December last, out of 1207 branches of Sonali Bank 502 had introduced CBS, Janata Bank's 503 branches, out of 902, Agrani Bank's 816 branches, out of 930, and Rupali Bank's 209 out of 554 branches launched CBS.
Besides, Krishi Bank's 94, out of 1030 branches, Bangladesh Development Bank's all 36 branches and Karmasangsthan Bank's 28, out of 212 branches introduced CBS. Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank is yet to go for CBS in its branches.
The WB aid memo said all SoBs lack clear IT strategies and implementation plan to embark on a comprehensive automation initiative to support their business priorities.
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