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BB wants account of all banks\' rescheduled loans

Siddique Islam | April 20, 2016 00:00:00


The central bank, now under a recast management following a big cyber-heist, has sought information on both rescheduled and restructured loans from all the banks for a reappraisal.  

Official sources said the stocktaking of bailed-out loan portfolios is meant for assessing impact of such loans on the country's banking sector.

Under the moves, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) has already sent a prescribed format to the banks, seeking different pieces of information on such loans from July 01, 2013 to December 31, 2015, according to the central bank officials.

The banks have been asked to furnish by May 02 the names of clients, amounts of rescheduled loans, the number of rescheduling and recovery position after the rescheduling of loans.

In the case of restructured loans, the recovery position of total outstanding amounts until March 31 last will have to be provided in the format, they added.

A significant amount of loans has been rescheduled during the period under review by taking advantage of policy relaxation to facilitate financing for the businesses affected by the political unrest surrounding the last national elections.

Earlier on December 23, 2013, the BB relaxed the loan-rescheduling policy on a limited scale for the succeeding six months to facilitate financing for the affected businesses.

Under the relaxations, the central bank has allowed banks to have their loans rescheduled by fixing their down payment and time limit for repayment on the basis of banker-customer relationship.

The commercial banks have also been empowered to restructure their unclassified loans through re-fixing repayment schedule at a reasonable level.

After end of the relaxation period, the banks are allowed to reschedule their loans on case-to-case basis subject to prior approval from the central bank until last December, a senior official of a leading private commercial bank told the FE Tuesday.

"The amount of non-performing loans in the banking sector declined following the rescheduling of the loans," the private banker noted.

Talking to the FE, a BB senior official said the central bank wants to review the rescheduled-loan situation in the overall banking sector.

Regarding restructured loans, including large ones, the central banker said: "We'll get total picture of outstanding position on such loans but recovery situation, particularly of restructured large loans, not to be available due to one-year grace period."

Most of the proposals for large loan restructuring were approved between July and August last year, the BB official explained.

The central bank earlier had cleared proposals of 10 business groups for restructuring their large loans worth Tk 140.48 billion.

A total of 22 commercial banks had earlier submitted the proposals to the BB for approval for large loan restructuring on behalf of their clients.

Talking to the FE, another BB official said the central bank was taking preparation to collect information on restructured large loans to know about the impact of such loans on the banking sector at large.

"We're working on the issue. We'll collect information on such loans shortly," the central banker said, without elaborating.

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