Finance Minister AMA Muhith has said action will be taken against Bangladesh Bank as it took too much time to inform the ministry about the fund hacking.
The minister made the statement after a meeting with Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Harsh Vardhan Shringla at his office on Sunday afternoon.
In a press briefing, Muhith said: "The way Bangladesh Bank is handling the matter has exposed the inefficiency of the bank."
The minister also said that he will sit with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to discuss the issue and then will give a statement.
Earlier in the day, Finance Ministry officials sat in a closed-door meeting with Bangladesh Bank officials.
Expressing disappointment over Bangladesh Bank's activity after the fund hacking, Bank and Financial Institutions Division Secretary M Aslam Alam said the central bank's lacking in IT security led to the hacking incident.
Related stories:
* 'IT security lacking led to BB hacking'
* FireEye to help probe Bangladesh Bank heist
* Portion of money hacked from BB’s US account recovered
* Another attempt to steal $870m from BB foiled
Around $100m was taken away by hackers from of Bangladesh Bank's overseas account with a US bank.
On February 4, $81m from the account of Bangladesh Bank at the New York Fed was ordered to be transferred to the four RCBC accounts – $30m was transferred to Lagrosas, $19.99m to Vergara, $25m to Vasquez and $6m to Cruz.
The funds were credited to the accounts via straight-through process after the transactions passed internal validation criteria. The funds were cleared through US-based correspondent banks Citibank, The Bank of New York Mellon and Wells Fargo.
The same day, Lagrosas withdrew $22.73m and deposited it in the US dollar account of William Go DBA Centurytex Trading, an account which was opened that day, PDI reports.
Between February 5 and 13, remittance company Philrem remitted the funds, now converted into Philippine pesos, to the bank accounts of Chinese national Weikang Xu, Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co and Bloomberry Hotels Inc (Solaire Resorts).
By the time Dhaka sent off frantic messages to halt the transaction, there was nobody in the office in Manila to respond.
On February 9, RCBC received a Swift message from BB requesting payment to be stopped and the accounts to be frozen for investigation. But withdrawals from the accounts totalling $58.15m had already been processed by RCBC.
Some $15.2m was deposited in the account of Philrem, $42.93m in Go’s dollar account and another $20m in Philrem, PDI reports.
On February 16, BB Governor Atiur Rahman sought the assistance of Philippine counterpart, Governor Amando Tetangco Jr of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, PDI reports.
Three days later, the Philippines’ Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) began a probe of bank accounts relating to Weikang Xu (believed to be a junket operator), Eastern Hawaii Leisure Co and Solaire Resorts.
The Philippine Daily Inquirer broke the story of a possible $100m digital bank robbery of BB funds on February 29.
