'Response is encouraging'

Offshore Banking Act 2024 enacted by Bangladesh Parliament with aim to reinforce the nation's foreign currency reserve and attracting foreign investment. It has the capacity to play role to alleviate country's foreign currency crisis by extending liquidity support and also to stabilize our local currency.
Offshore Banking in Bangladesh has started its journey in 1985 and it's not a new service. By passing Offshore Banking Act, this segment is receiving much attention now-a-days. The Offshore Banking law has relaxed rules and policies to allow foreign nationals to avail the service. Including customers like individual and entities residing outside Bangladesh, non-resident Bangladeshis, foreign nationals, companies registered and operating abroad with external institutional investors.
Financial privacy for depositor is confidential for banks in Bangladesh. To protect secrecy of clients' info, we had Bankers' Books Evidence Act, 1891. To emphasize financial privacy for depositors in Banks, our government also passed "Bankers' Book Evidence Bill 2021" and replaces the previous one. The new law states some offences, punishments and trial to prevent unauthorized use and leakage of any information.
The "Big Three" international rating agencies have downgraded Bangladesh's sovereign credit rating indicating there might be problem on the horizon. For any private investors, no doubt, they greatly rely on the rating agencies for their analysis. Though there is a probability that private investors will be discouraged greatly by the downgrades but steady steps like Current Account surplus in BOP, ceasing depletion in country's foreign exchange reserve and to ensure corporate governance in Bank will help to overcome the problem shortly.
The National Bank has taken a number of steps to attract deposit. The steps include:
(a) Introduced FC term & IB Account in our Core Banking system;
(b) Advertise the key features and benefits of opening accounts in OBU on various digital platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Ad Network;
(c) Steps have been taken to streamline the process of opening Offshore Accounts directly through our Corporate Website, making it more convenient; and
(d) Utilization of conventional marketing strategies.
It is worth mentioning that we are receiving emails and phone calls from foreign investors and entities inquiring about the features and benefits of investing in OBU, as well as key risk issues for foreign investors. Additionally, new accounts are being opened.
Offshore Banking started its journey in 1985 in Bangladesh but with the recent "Offshore Banking Act-2024", it may open a key window for banks in Bangladesh to attract deposit in foreign currencies. Since our banking structure [both Technical & Human Resources] is already providing fund transfer facility as mentioned above, so it's a matter of days to adopt those for Offshore Banks in Bangladesh.