BKB rejoinder

The Bangladesh Krishi Bank (BKB) in a rejoinder has contested certain aspects of the content of the post-editorial published in The Financial Express on Thursday. The Bank differed with a few figures concerning its classified loans and capital shortfall and transfer of officials and employees.
BKB said its total loan portfolio of BDT 385 billion, approximately BDT 240 billion is dedicated to agricultural loans. Based on June 2024 data, the bank maintained provisioning against classified loans totaling BDT 43 billion. However, as per the BRPD Circular-15 issued by Bangladesh Bank in November 2024, approximately BDT 98 billion of rescheduled agricultural loans were reclassified as non-performing loans (NPLs), which increased the total classified loan amount to BDT 141.47 billion. By June 2025, the figure rose by another BDT 35 billion, taking the total classified loans to BDT 175.46 billion.
This means that over the past two years, there has been a sudden increase of approximately BDT 132 billion in classified loans, which in turn resulted in a capital shortfall rising to BDT 102.50 billion due to provisioning requirements.
The transfer and promotion activities of Bangladesh Krishi Bank are part of a continuous process that strictly follows government policies, regulations, and the bank's own internal rules. In the past year following August 5, a total of 999 officials were transferred by the bank's head office. However, the published report mentioned a figure of 4,906 transfers, which is completely false and deliberately misleading.
Similar to other government institutions, transfers and promotions at the bank were carried out with proper approval from the competent authorities to ensure transparency, good governance, and the smooth continuation and acceleration of the bank's overall operations. These activities are routine functions of any organization.