Bangladesh Bank has primarily given its consent to the proposal of establishing Shimanto Bank for the welfare of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) members.
The decision came at the central bank board meeting held recently in its headquarters.
Bangladesh Bank issued a letter of interest in favour of the bank, asking to go for a formal procedure.
Now the BGB will formally apply to the central bank for setting up the bank with a required capital of Tk400 crore within six months, said a senior executive of Bangladesh Bank.
According to the BGB proposal, the bank will not operate as fully commercial, rather as welfare bank.
All the profit of the bank will be provided to BGB members and retired persons as loans on simple condition.
The bank will play a vital role in improving overall living standard of BGB members, the proposal described.
Shimanto Bank would provide various services and schemes for the BGB members like soft loans, pension scheme, house loan, local and foreign aid for health, marriage loan, agriculture loan and One House, One Farm loan.
Currently, 56 scheduled banks are operating in the market, of which 39 are private commercial banks.
The ruling Awami League government has given licence to nine private commercial banks in the year 2013.
The new banks are NRB Commercial, South Bangla Agriculture, Meghna, Midland, The Farmers Bank, Union Bank, NRB Bank, NRB Global Bank and Modhumoti Bank.
The total capital of the banking sector stood at Tk68,231 crore as of June 2015 compared to Tk52,710 crore in the year 2011, according to the Bangladesh Bank data.
Total loans of the banks in the market were Tk5,43,000 crore in June last year which was Tk3,79,250 crore in the year 2011.
The amount of total asset of the banking sector stood at Tk9,69,385 crore in June 2015 which was Tk5,87,500 crore in 2011.
