2025 -- a year of rebound for UCB, says its MD

The significant turnaround of the United Commercial Bank (UCB) from a prolonged liquidity crisis will be a key topic of discussion in the coming days as far as transformation in the banking industry is concerned, said the bank's Managing Director and CEO Mohammad Mamdudur Rashid.
In an exclusive interview with The Financial Express (FE) recently, the seasoned banker said that 2025 was a transformative year for the bank, with a focus on three major areas: liquidity management, cash recovery and capital management.
"Alhamdulillah, we have made remarkable progress in these areas, which basically helps the bank rebound from the crisis," he said.
The first-generation private commercial bank, once reeling under stress, has taken bold steps to regain its footing. By focusing on key areas such as human capital, customer confidence, deposit mobilisation, and asset quality, UCB has already made visible progress in turning around its fortunes.
Riding on this strong rebound, the bank managed to reduce its advance deposit ratio (ADR) well below the regulatory ceiling of 87 per cent, down from around 95 per cent recorded in the last quarter of 2024.
Sharing some data, the bank's top executive said that the commercial lender saw its net deposit grow by Tk 40.82 billion in 2024. The average deposit growth over the last several years has been Tk 48.0 billion, with the highest single-year deposit at Tk 78.0 billion.
In January last year, he said, they targeted a deposit of Tk 120 billion (Tk 10 billion in each month) in 2025.
"But the result is much better than what we expected. We ended the year by collecting Tk 130 billion in deposit," he said.
The bank has also worked to rebuild public trust by launching targeted deposit campaigns and ensuring customers' liquidity needs are met promptly -- whether through branch services, ATM booths, or cheque clearing.
These efforts, Mr Rashid noted, have played a key role in restoring client confidence.
Mr Rashid, who took over as the bank's top executive on September 30, 2024, said they tried to motivate every employee to contribute personally in deposit hunt. As a matter of fact, even the security guards of the bank contribute to alluring the depositors into the bank. "So, we work as a team as it was a year of transformation for all of us."  About the nature of the deposits collected, the experienced banker said 40 per cent of the Tk 130-billion deposits is low- or no-cost deposit while 60 per cent is in high-cost segment. But the bank plans to make it 50:50 by the end of 2027.
When his attention was drawn to cash recovery, he said they have significantly strengthened its legal process by incorporating highly qualified legal experts and bankers into the team to reduce the burden of non-performing loans (NPLs).
As a result, according to him, they managed to improve loan recovery by 250 per cent while cash recovery grew as much in the last one year.
The ratio of NPLs had surged to 18.90 per cent by June 2025. But the intensified recovery drives helped bring it down to 16.90 per cent as of September 2025. "We're very hopeful that there will be a significant reduction in NPLs once the audited data of December-end is ready," he said.

However, the bank now has a clear plan to reduce that figure to 5.0 per cent within 2029. On capital adequacy ratio, UCB's managing director said the shareholders of the bank approved three proposals - issuance of subordinate bonds, right shares and taking on board strategic partners.
He said the bank has already completed all the formalities, including approval from the regulatory bodies, and it started issuing subordinate bonds which will strengthen the bank's Tier-2 capital.
Regarding the right shares, he said they were awaiting the regulatory approval from the Bangladesh Bank and the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission. And the process of finding strategic partners is going on.
After making significant progress in 2025, the commercial bank now sets 2026 as a year of progress with a focus on asset growth.
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