Financial inclusion a touchstone for quality

Standard Bank Ltd will open a branch to operate in Jeddah of Kingdom of Saudia Arabia (KSA).
"Bangladesh Bank has already allowed us to open the branch in KSA and the process is being finalised from the regulatory end of KSA," Mamun Ur Rashid, Managing Director & CEO of Standard Bank Ltd told The FE in an interview recently.
He said at present the bank has 114 branches across the country and 10 more will be added by the end of 2017.
 "We expect to increase rural customer base with 0.3 million new accounts and low cost deposit of Tk 3000 million riding on agent banking," the Standard Bank MD said.
He said the bank has already opened 60,000 new accounts during the last six months.
"Definitely, it is a conspicuous success in the area of financial inclusion to open such a large number of accounts amid tough competition within a period of only six months," he asserted.
The bank will complete 18 years of operation in next month (June) after launching the commercial operation on June 3, 1999.
Asked about the contribution of the bank during the last 18 years, the Standard Bank MD said : We don't believe in 'aggressive banking', rather we have accomplished lot of projects in country's entrepreneurship effort to upgrade our economic condition in a 'slow but steady' way.
He said apart from corporate banking, Standard Bank contributed a lot in the diversified business areas like SME, agri-business, retail business, export-import business and remittance.
"We have 7 exchange houses in USA and UK and all of them are profitable since we have been successfully harnessing our efforts to encourage the NRBs to send remittances through banking channel," the Standard Bank MD said.
"Business diversification in a prudent way is our bedrock and based on this strong principle we want to go a long way in the journey towards building a strong and robust economic base of Bangladesh," Mr Mamun-Ur-Rashid said.
Asked about the challenges of the banking sector, the Standard Bank MD said maintaining the loan quality and risk of non-performing loans should be tackled seriously.
"Cost of fund of all banks will naturally rise, if the above two problems are not settled immediately and the spill-over effect will hit the overall profitability of the banks ," Mr Mamun said.
The Bank's profit after tax stood at Tk 1,088 million in 2016  against Tk 1,596 million in 2015.
The import, export and foreign remittance businesses of the bank were Tk 55,684 million, Tk 38,506 million and Tk 5,764 million respectively in 2016.
The bank's paid-up capital was Tk 7,541 million in 2016.
The strategic priorities for 2017 include financial inclusion of customers in the unbanked areas with geographical dispersal of branch network, prudent asset liability management by maintaining good credit portfolio through diversification of business with focus on SME, agent banking, retail and agri-business financing by achieving a favourable deposit mix with sound liquidity management, effective IT framework and system through upgradation of bank modules and strengthening of IT infrastructure with sound network and cyber security, monitor and strengthen recovery drive to bring down the NPL and maintain asset quality at standard level, Basel-3 compliance with raising and managing capital adequacy from 10 per cent to 12.50 per cent.
 The 18th annual general meeting of Standard Bank Ltd was held on April 30 last and it approved 10 per cent dividend for the shareholders of the bank for the period ended December 31, 2016.
    raihanmchowdhury@gmail.com