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BD Finance to launch innovative products

Ismail Hossain | October 12, 2020 00:00:00


Bangladesh Finance and Investment Company Ltd or BD Finance is planning to introduce innovative and customized lending and deposit options to pull together NBFI-designed funding and lending base, top executive of the non-bank financial institution said.

To materialize the plan, the NBFI is planning to bring worth Tk 2.0 billion subordinate or zero coupon bond in the market for three to five years, he said.

BD Finance also wants to launch some innovative small and medium-sized enterprise products to strengthen its deposit base, Md Kyser Hamid, chief executive officer of bdfinance told The Financial Express.

He said the company will launch the bond within the next six months.

Mr Hamid, who joined BD Finance recently as CEO, said he has detailed plan to make the NBFI as one of the top three.

In an interview with FE, he said the banks and NBFIs in the country put on the market one size fits for all products, specially for SMEs.

"But we plan to launch some innovative SME products which are customised and will be designed as per customer's cash cycle, flow and needs," he said.

He said they have plan to introduce some green products, focusing on energy efficient home and construction loans.

Mr Hamid said the country's banks and financial institutions do not speak in a human language.

"We don't have kind of business model the country's NBFI sector needs."

The CEO said NBFI's funding and lending mix in the country are almost similar to bank.

He said the country's top NBFIs in the market now are doing well because deposit and lending mix are good and not similar to banks.

"We borrowed from banks and lend the fund to bank customers at higher interest rate," he said.

He said he is working to make credit rating of the NBFI higher and stronger.

Md Kyser Hamid was appointed as the managing director and chief executive officer of BD Finance last month.

Before joining BD Finance, he served as the deputy managing director and head of retail business of IPDC Finance Limited.

Mr Hamid said they want to go to collaborative approach with Anwar Group, key sponsor of bdfinance, and set up small offices or use Anwar Group vast business network across the country to reach out with their innovative products.

"We can also use customer data of Anwar Group for the purpose of both lending and savings products," he said.

He admitted that the country's NBFI has trust crisis which is because all NBFIs do same sort of business and similar kind of lending and deposit products.

BD Finance started its journey in 1999 with the prime objective of delivering financial services across the different segments of clienteles and business as part of its humble endeavor to contribute meaningfully to the cause of socio-economic development of the country.

The Company obtained permission from Bangladesh Bank to operate as financial institution under the Financial Institutions Act 1993 on December 22, 1999 and got listed in Dhaka Stock Exchange on September 06, 2007 and Chittagong Stock Exchange on August 28, 2007.

The shareholding structure of BD Finance consists of reputed corporate houses, leading industrialists and general public.

BD Finance is giving minimum 10 per cent dividend on year on year andit gave 12 per cent cash dividend in 2019 even in this difficult time.

BD Finance has one of the lowest NPL which is close to 4 per cent and will decrease at the end of year 2020, according to official source.

The consolidated operating income of the NBFI has increased by 39 per cent in H1 2020 where operating expenses decreased by 23 per cent compared to the same period of H1 2019 which indicates higher operational efficiency.

As a part of their continuing cost control and maintaining higher yield on investment, the financial performance would be better in Q3 2020 and for coming full year, company source said.

BD Finance maintains capital adequacy ratio at 16.31 per cent which is above the requirement of regulators and they will maintain strong capital base.

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