SoBs lag far behind PCBs in modern technologies

Badrul Ahsan The state-owned commercial banks (SoBs) of the country are lagging far behind the private ones in terms of use of advanced technologies. It has mainly been attributed to the government's alleged interference, mismanagement and some other bureaucratic tangles, insiders said. They said the private commercial banks (PCBs) are in competition among them for catching up the most advanced technologies. These include online banking, SMS banking, MMS banking, mobile banking, internet banking, mobile ATM and many more. But the SCBs even have not yet brought their branches under online transaction facilities. According to data available with the Bangladesh Bank, only around 25 per cent branches of the SCBs have come under the online facility. The total debit and credit card users of these banks are less than 30,000 whereas the number of plastic card users of the PCBs is more than 4 million. There are 1 million credit card users in the PCBs with an annual growth of more than 20 per cent. Besides, there are around 4 million ATM cards currently in use in the country, of which the share of the SCBs is only ten thousand, data showed. "More than 80 per cent of total investment in the country is made by the SCBs. But these banks are lagging behind the PCBs mainly due to the government's interference and bureaucratic tangles," a general manager of a SCB told the FE preferring anonymity. "We can not independently and promptly take decision of adopting any innovative or modern technology in our banks. There is a lot of policy constraints and bureaucratic tangles in this regard," he added. According to him, the clients still face different types of harassment while taking services from the SCBs. On the other hand, the PCBs offer in-house services to their clients through internet and other modern technologies. However, some top officials of the SCBs expressed their hope that the government banks would gradually adopt different modern facilities in banking. "After relentless efforts, our bank has now recovered from many of its drawbacks. Now we are concentrating on modernisation to be competitive in business," Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Janata Bank Ltd, Md Aminur Rahman told the FE. "Deposits and advances of the Janata Bank increased in the meantime. Besides, loan sanction and recovery against bad loans also increased significantly. So now we will now concentrate on modernisation of our bank," he added. Mr Rahman also said the bank has a plan to adopt all types of modern technologies including mobile banking, internet banking, SMS banking, MMS banking and others gradually to be competitive in the sector. A general manager of the Sonali Bank Ltd said the bank has already introduced a number of modern facilities. "Now it is time to strengthen our efforts to popularise our modern facilities along with introducing new technologies," he added. According to him, the Sonali Bank has introduced on-line banking, online real time banking, SMS banking and ATM services. However, many bankers with the SCBs are not sure how far the government banks would succeed in modernisation because of mismanagement and unholy activities.