People rushed to banks for cash withdrawal at the eleventh hour on Sunday, the last day of general banking before the Puja and Eid vacation.
Banks spent frantic time to deal to with the higher demand for cash from the customers who flocked to the cash counters to withdraw money for festival expenditure.
However, the inter-bank call money rate remained at around 9% on Sunday a slight rise from Thursday’s 8% as most banks were maintaining enough liquidity to deal with cash withdrawal pressure.
On Wednesday, the rate was 7.2%. The call money rate was 10% before Eid-ul-Azha last year.
“It was a busy day,” said NCC Bank Executive Vice President Ashim Kumar Saha.
Banks were loaded with customers, mostly relatives of remittance earners, and people were seen standing in queue for more than half an hour to complete their banking needs at the branches.
The country received $186m as remittances between October 01 and October 04 from Bangladeshi nationals working abroad, according to the central bank statistics.
Normally before any festival, transaction of funds increases and this time too there is no exception, Saha said.
The bottom line is that the call money rate remained at single-digit, indicating that banks have adequate funds, he said.
“I deal with 25% to 30% higher customers than any normal day,” said Aminur Alam, an executive of a cash counter at the Motijheel branch of Dhaka Bank.
The scene was the same in almost all the bank branches in Motijheel area.
Elsewhere in Dhaka, the bank branches also witnessed huge withdrawal pressure, but the crowd started reducing since noon.
Bankers said the ATM booths of different banks would also be refilled adequately so the card holders could withdraw cash as and when necessary.
Flagging private sector borrowing in the run up to the general election due January next has led to swell huge surplus fund of the country’s commercial banks for more than a year.