MoF to review SoBs’ loan portfolios next week

The Ministry of Finance (MoF) is expected to review the loan portfolios of the state-owned banks (SoBs) sometime next week, officials said on Monday.
Besides, the progress made in the recovery and disbursement of SME and farm loans, recruitment of manpower and automation system of the banks will also be reviewed, they said.   
As part of the move, the Bank and Financial Institutions Division (BFID) of the MoF has convened a meeting to be attended by the chief executives of the SoBs. Dr M Aslam Alam, secretary of the BFID will preside. Representatives from the Bangladesh Bank (BB) will also be present at the meeting.
The division has already asked the SoBs to send their progress reports up to May by tomorrow (Wednesday).
A high official of the MoF said the meeting has been called mainly to discuss the state of recovery and disbursement of farm and SME loan and the situation with the classified loans.
Besides, the recruitment of new manpower, progress of automation system etc of the banks will be discussed in the meeting.
In the country's banking sector, the non performing loans (NPLs) increased further in the first quarter (Q1) of the current calendar year due to a number of factors, including the BNP-sponsored non-stop countrywide blockade, according to the BB.
The volume of non-performing loans (NPLs) rose by nearly 9.0 per cent to Tk 546.58 billion during the January-March period of this year from Tk 501.56 billion in the preceding quarter. The figure was Tk 572.91 billion in the last quarter of 2014, the official data showed.
During the January-March 2015 period, the total amount of NPLs with five state-owned banks came down marginally to Tk 226.54 billion from Tk 227.63 billion in the previous quarter.
On the other hand, disbursement of farm credit decreased by more than 2.0 per cent to Tk 111.66 billion in the July-March period of FY '15 from Tk 114.46 billion in the same period of FY '14, the BB data showed.
Of Tk 111.66 billion, state-owned banks disbursed Tk 66.27 billion, and the remaining Tk 45.39 billion was disbursed by private commercial banks (PCBs) and foreign commercial banks (FCBs).
All banks achieved nearly 72 per cent of their annual agricultural loan disbursement target for FY '15, fixed at Tk 155.50 billion.
But the recovery of farm loans came down to Tk 117.56 billion during the period under review from Tk 124.23 billion in the same period of the previous fiscal year.
    rezamumu@gmail.com