The Bangladesh Bank on Thursday approved Standard Bank’s application to keep some of its banking services closed from December 30 to January 4 next year, to ease its transition into an Islamic bank from a conventional one.
From early January, Standard Bank will be a bank following Shariah principles, said its Managing Director Khondoker Rashed Maqsood.
The bank got the BB nod on February 9 to make the switch to Islamic banking.
As part of the transition, it has sent in an application to the central bank for a temporary closure of its services linked to the Bangladesh Automated Clearing House (BACH), the Bangladesh Electronic Funds Transfer Network (BEFTN), digital banking and the real-time gross settlement (RTGS).
The shutdown would help them in completing the migration process, said a notice from the BB.
The temporary shutdown was approved per Section 45 of the Bank Company Act, 1991.
According to the notice, the banking services will remain closed from 6 pm of December 30 until 10 pm on January 4 next year.
