Bangladesh Bank has released the third and final instalment of the government’s Tk900 crore refinancing scheme for the stock investors who were badly affected by the market crash in early 2011.
The final instalment of the government’s refinancing scheme was released by the central bank yesterday.
The state-run Investment Corporation of Bangladesh is entrusted in disbursing the fund amounting to Tk300 crore as it already utilised the first and second instalments worth Tk300 crore each.
Part of the government’s compensation package for the stock market, the refinance scheme is for retail investors with stock market exposure lower than Tk10 lakh between January 2009 and November 2011.
The ICB receives the fund from Bangladesh Bank at 5% interest rate and lends it to merchant banks and stockbrokers at 7%.
The merchant banks and the stockbrokers then disburse the fund to the retail investors at 9% interest rate, according to the guideline of the refinance scheme.
The borrowers will have to repay the loans every three months and should give corporate guarantee against the loans to the ICB, who will deposit the received amount to the refinance fund.
The regulator will have the authority to cancel licences of the merchant banks and stockbrokers if they fail to repay the loans in time, according to the guideline.
A surveillance panel, comprising representatives from the central bank, Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission and the ICB, is responsible for monitoring the scheme’s operations and submitting a report to the finance ministry every quarter.
From the first and second instalments, the ICB disbursed almost entire amount to 10,568 affected investors through merchant banks and stockbrokers, said a committee member.
