A bilateral meeting between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the Bangladesh Bank (BB) will be held in New York in August to speed up efforts for recovering the stolen US$ 81 million from the Philippines, officials said.
The meeting date has already been shifted to next month from tentative July 15, proposed earlier by the parties concerned, for taking adequate preparations, they added.
"We need more time for completing our 'technical preparations' that will be important for discussion in the meeting," a BB senior official told the FE on Tuesday.
As part of the preparations, the central bank is now preparing a remediation plan to ensure foolproof IT security system in BB to avert any sort of cybercrimes in future.
"We're preparing the remediation plan to make our IT security system a foolproof one, and give it an international standard," the BB official said.
On May 29, the central bank's IT consultant Rakesh Asthana gave a presentation at BB board of directors meeting for taking possible measures to take its IT security system to the desired level for ensuring cyber security.
"We're now working relentlessly to ensure foolproof IT security system for averting any sort of cybercrimes in future," the central banker explained.
Talking to the FE, another BB official said the central bank is now in discussion with its counterpart of the United States for fixation of the meeting date.
"We're hopeful about holding the meeting at any suitable time in August," he added.
At least four senior officials of BB, headed by Deputy Governor Abu Hena Mohd Razee Hassan, will take part at the meeting, according to the official.
He also said it will be the second meeting between Federal Reserve Bank of New York and BB for recovering the stolen money from the Southeast Asian country.
"The decision is yet to be taken as to whether SWIFT officials would be present or not at the meeting in New York. SWIFT is only the service provider, not the regulator," he concluded.
On May 10, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the central bank of Bangladesh and SWIFT agreed at a meeting in Basel, Switzerland to work jointly for recovering the stolen $81 million from the Philippines.
The three parties also vowed to catch the cyber-thieves and protect the global financial system from such attacks.
"We'll be able to recover the stolen money from the Philippines easily, if New York Fed plays its due roles," the BB official observed.
The cyber fraud took place on the night of February 4 through sending a total of 35 transfer orders to the US Federal Reserve Bank in New York, where the central bank of Bangladesh maintains an account.
Nearly $20 million of the $101 million siphoned off money was recovered from Sri Lanka. The lion's share of the money landed in the Philippines. Â
   siddique.islam@gmail.com
BB-Fed Reserve meeting in August to recoup $81m
Siddique Islam | Published: July 13, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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