The country’s 56 banks have a default loan of Tk55,000 crore which is 10.47% of their total loan, Finance Minister AMA Muhith told the parliament yesterday.
Of the banks, the state-owned commercial banks, including Sonali, Agrani, Janata and Rupali, have default loans of Tk22,654 crore, he said.
The default loans are the major concern of banking sector as it is the rising trend despite rescheduling huge loans through taking advantages of relaxed policy given by Bangladesh Bank.
The failure to continue instalment payment by the clients who reschedule loans taking relaxed policy advantages is the major factor of rising default loans, said the authorities concerned.
The state banks are mainly accounted for high default loans as the huge amount of loans turned bad since the hallmark loan scam.
Moreover the BASIC Bank loan scam alone drove the total defaulted loan amount higher, as 91% of its total loan turned into default.
Responding to a query, the minister highlighted the default loan situation of the banking sector in the Parliament.
He mentioned that BASIC Bank has the highest rate of default loans.
Of its Tk8,964 crore loan, Basic has defaulted a loan of Tk5,079 crore.
Muhith also said among the private banks, Islami Bank has the highest default loan amounted to Tk2,802 crore.
Among the state-run banks, Sonali Bank has the highest default loan of Tk8,323 crore which is 22.49% of its total loan, he said.
Responding to a query, he said recently an initiative has been taken up to form a regional bank named Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank with $100 billion capital.
“Twenty one countries including Bangladesh have showed interest to become its member. Activities of the bank might start from the end of this year.”