The Bangladesh Bank (BB) has decided to resume publishing some key data on the financial health of banks, including interest rates and spreads, according to sources at the central bank.
For the past five months, BB has not been publishing this key information about the regular operations of commercial banks, especially weighted average lending and deposit rates and spreads.
Sources say that BB Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder gave verbal instructions on Wednesday for the department concerned to start releasing the weighted average interest rates for deposits, lending and their spreads again.
Money market observers and bankers say that without this information, it is difficult to understand the actual situation in the banking sector, especially in the context of a highly contractionary monetary regime.
Seeking anonymity, a BB official said there are significant volumes of deposits, particularly savings deposits, where depositors receive almost no return.
If the weighted average rate is calculated based on the existing format, it may not truly reflect the market, the official said, adding, "That is why the information was not released publicly."
The official added that they will start releasing the statistics for January this year "very soon."
According to the BB, the last published weighted average deposit rate in banks was 4.95 per cent, while the weighted average lending rate was 9.92 per cent. The spread was 4.97 per cent.
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