Nazmus Salehin
Standard Bank Ltd will launch 'agent banking' soon to help reach the bank's services to the un-banked population across the country.
"We are going to start 'agent banking' by the end of next month (September) and it will be a new venture of our bank to support financial inclusion, the much-talked about theme to ensure economic growth," Md Nazmus Salehin, Managing Director & CEO of Standard Bank Ltd told The FE in an interview recently.
He said the bank has taken a five-year business plan for implementation of agent banking covering 600 unions of 400 upazillas across the country by 2019.
"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 further said upon implementation of agent banking, the outlets of the bank will enhance the foreign remittance disbursement capacity including small loan disbursement and recovery point of loans besides cash payments under government safety net programme.
The bank recently completed 16 years of services after launching the commercial operation on June 3, 1999.
Asked about the contribution of the bank during the last 16 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 two exchange houses in USA and UK and both 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 Nazmus Salehin 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 cascading effect will hit the overall profitability of the banks ," Mr Nazmus said.
The bank has 100 branches across the country and more five branches will be opened by the end of this year (2015).
The Bank's profit after tax rose to Tk 1213.00 million in 2014 against Tk 1011.00 million in 2013.
The 16th annual general meeting of Standard Bank Ltd was held on May 14 and approved 15 per cent stock dividend for the shareholders of the bank for the period ended December 31, 2014.
The Bank's strategic priorities for 2015 are launching of merchant POS services with national payment switch and e-commerce through mobile application and compliance of Basel-three with raising and managing capital adequacy from 10.0 per cent to 12.5 per cent.
Mr Nazmus Salehin, a career banker began his career in 1979 as probationary officer (senior officer) of Sonali Bank. Later he served in Agrani Bank and Janata Bank ahead of joining Standard Bank as deputy managing director in 2008.
Mr Salehin was promoted as additional managing director and managing director of Standard Bank Ltd in 2010 and 2013 respectively.
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