Dhaka Bank bypasses liquidity crisis: MD

Sonia H Moni Dhaka Bank managed to ride out the current liquidity crisis after it used its lending portfolio efficiently, the private lender's top boss said Saturday. "Some banks were affected by the (liquidity) crisis. But we were able to navigate it," managing director of the bank Khondkar Fazle Rashid said. "Although we had enough scope to disburse more loans, we treaded on a careful path," he added. He also said his bank is taking steps to increase the number of deposit and has focused on raising low-cost deposit. "We will reward the highest savings and current accounts opener in the next three months," he told the FE. Mr. Rashid did not elaborate on why the bank stepped up drive to collect more deposits, despite its claim to have navigated the liquidity crisis. His comments came as he emerged out of the half-yearly business review meeting 2011 at a city hotel. He said the bank achieved its 'target' in all areas around 95 per cent in the last six months. "The performance of our bank in the first and second quarter is quite satisfactory and we are hopeful to achieve 100 per cent target at the end of this year," he added. The bank boss said, "We will bring down all of our classified loans to less than 3.0 per cent. And already, we've managed to reduce advanced deposit ratio and credit deposit ratio to 85 per cent in June 2011." The half-yearly business review 2011 was presided over by the Dhaka Bank MD. He gave necessary guidelines to the officials and branch managers towards strengthening the financial base of the bank. The meeting evaluated the performance of last six months and adopted necessary strategy and action plan to achieve the target for the current year. Divisional heads of head offices, managers of all 61 branches took part in the discussion. Officials said Dhaka Bank has a plan to introduce new products for students and school-going boys and girls. Dhaka Bank deputy managing director for risk management Neaz Mohammad Khan, deputy managing director for business banking Tanweer Rahim, sponsor shareholder ATM Hayatuzzaman Khan and Director Rakhi Das Gupta and company secretary Arham Masudul Huq were, among others, present at the review meeting.