Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) authorities have claimed that the bank is not pursuing aggressive lending, despite having faced several warnings from the Bangladesh Bank in the last year.
At a press conference Monday, bank's Chairman Arastoo Khan pushed back against the complaints, saying the 90% Advance Deposit Ratio (ADR) limit for Islami banks was limiting for IBBL as it caused a lot of money to sit idle.
“Customers blame the Islami Bank for violation of the limit. Islami banks can distribute up to 90% of their deposit. However there is a massive amount of idle money due to this limit. So the limit should be relaxed,” he said.
Arastoo also said the bank had not actually crossed the limit last year.
“IBBL invested 87.7% of its deposit in the last year. We have Tk7,500 crore lying idle in our bank,” he said.
Deposit and operating profit of Islami Bank increased significantly, breaking records in the history of the bank, and default loans had declined in the last year, the chairman said.
The chairman added, the amount of deposit was Tk75,130 crore on December 31, 2017, Tk7,244 crore higher than the deposit on the same date previous year.
“Our total general investment is approximately Tk70,099 crore including new investment of Tk8,457 crore, and the number of consumers is 12.5 million in the same tenure,” he added.
Khan also said, Islami Bank earned Tk38,500 crore from import, Tk24,000 crore from export and Tk23,300 crore from remittance in 2017.
“I gathered experience as a director in different banks in the country and worked at various international organizations including World Bank and IMF,” Arastoo said.
“My experience is that there is transparency and honesty in this bank.”
He said that whereas different banks were embroiled in scandals throughout the year, IBBL has made progress.
“Transparency is a great thing for the banking sector. Consumers can take loans without paying any bribe, that's why this bank has earned so much goodwill.”
“We have responsibility to the people being the largest bank of the country. We plan to invest more in small and medium enterprises this year. Besides, we will stress on mCash and technology this year as the government promotes these,” he also said.
The chairman said IBBL has made progress in every index through multiple crises, including default loans, change in the board and liquidity crisis.
“Our deposit was like other banks in 2017. Our investment increased 13.7% and income increased 9.2% compared to the last year,” he said.
He said some 27% growth was in December only.
Executive Committee Chairman Major General (Retd) Engr Abdul Matin, Audit Committee Chairman Dr Md Zillur Rahman, FCA, FCMA, Director Md Syful Islam, Managing Director and CEO Md Abdul Hamid Miah, Additional Managing Director Md Mahbub-ul-Alam, Deputy Managing Directors and top executives of the bank were present there.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
