'Managing a bank like Brac Bank during the pandemic was a big challenge'
Brac Bank Ltd is moving into its 21st year. Selim RF Hussain, its recently-reappointed managing director and CEO, speaks to Dhaka Tribune's Meraj Mavis in an exclusive interview about what it took to get here and what he envisions for Brac Bank in the future
Publish : 09 Jan 2022, 08:39 PMUpdate : 20 Feb 2022, 02:57 PM
Brac Bank has been in its 21st year, of which you have served for six years. How would you evaluate your tenure and the whole journey of Brac Bank so far?
I joined Brac Bank in November 2015. Only recently has the bank reappointed me for another four years, until my retirement, which is in March 2026.
If I look back when I joined in 2015, Brac Bank was a moderately-performing bank. But now if we look at the bank's graph, especially its financial matrix with other banks of the country, we can see that Brac Bank has improved significantly.
After 20 years of its establishment, today we lead the industry.
But six years ago, it was a big challenge for me to get the bank to the top of the chain.
Not only that, but in Bangladesh, we are standard-bearers for corporate governance, transparency, ethical banking, sustainable finance, and socio-responsible banking.
Although these core policies were prevalent for the last 20 years, I have been able to take it to another level in the last six years. At least our portfolio indicates that.
What were a few of those significant improvements in the last 5-6 years of your tenure?
Today, if you look at the bank's data like profitability, return on assets, return on equity, capital adequacy, international credit rating, local credit rating, and cost income ratio, you will see that in most of them, Brac Bank is either among the top or is number one.
If you look at our market capitalization, there has been a big change.
Today it is double that of any other bank in the country.
But the truth is that there are seven to eight banks that are bigger than Brac Bank.
Selim RF Hussain Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune
There is another bank which is three to four times larger than our bank.
This means that in 5-6 years, as people's confidence in Brac Bank has grown, we have been able to overtake our bigger competitors to reach to the top.
How do you envision Brac Bank in the next four years, compared to the last six?
After completing two tenures here, we have fixed new goals.
The first of which is to forget what we have achieved before. I do not want to be stuck in what I/we have done before.
We want to double the size of our bank.
I want to double the bank's businesses in the next four years.
One thing I always remember, which our founding member Sir Fazle Hasan Abed had said, “small is beautiful but big is impactful.”
Brac Bank wants to be big now, not only in big cities like Dhaka and Chittagong, but all over the country.
Has the board of directors supported you in all your decisions? How do you perceive Brac Bank without Sir Fazle Hasan Abed?
Yes, after his departure the board has changed a lot.
It has been a great privilege in my life to learn to work from someone like Sir Abed.
In fact, no matter how well you study or know, learning on the job is a different matter.
I learned about development banking, socially-responsible banking and values-based banking from him.
Although I had learned the fundamentals about these from Dr Atiur Rahman in the beginning of my career, Sir Abed solidified those aspects inside me.
It is not possible to make up for the loss caused by his departure. But we want to move forward with his legacy.
Moreover, the new board, even with those who have come as a new director or chairman, are all following the path shown by him.
The new board, with new directors, is much more versatile and in-depth than when I had joined. I have not faced any operational barriers from them, and I believe will never happen.
What were the main challenges in running a major bank like Brac Bank?
The initial challenge for me was to form a strong management team right after joining.
Selim RF Hussain Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune
That team is now immensely skilled and professional. Now I have to maintain that team spirit with collective responsibility and accountability.
I have tried to set an ambition for everyone since the day I joined. I also set a few targets, which was not practiced before.
Once that was set, confidence and enthusiasm came more organically, which fuelled everyone to move forward.
But in regards to teamwork, almost 1,300 Brac Bank employees were laid off between January and August 2020. Was this a routine procedure?
We are a performance-oriented organization. But not everyone can perform equally, especially those in the sales department.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, more specifically in the last one and half years, 1,270 employees left the bank.
Of these, 570 left due to personal reasons.
The rest were sales personnel, and we lose a lot of them every year.
But I can assure you that, if they cannot reach their set targets, we give them chances.
However, when those chances were exhausted, they left automatically, it is not because of Covid-19.
Yes, you are right it is a routine procedure. Moreover, if you look at our recruitment volume, you will see that our hiring volume is higher than others, that is why the layoff volume is also more.
Brac Bank always says that the CMSME sector is of utmost importance. How was the loan disbursement process for this sector, especially amid the pandemic?
Bangladesh Bank recognized us for providing maximum credit to the CMSME sector last year.
Last year, the target was to disburse loans of Tk1,100 crore in the CMSE sector. But we have disbursed more than Tk300 crore then the given target, meaning it was Tk1,400 crore.
This year we have been given the same goal of Tk1,400 crore, of which 62% has already been disbursed.
Generally, 53% of the total loans of Brac Bank has gone to this sector. Of the remaining loans, 30% have been disbursed to the corporate sector and 18% to the retail sector.
How has the Covid-19 pandemic changed banking operations in Bangladesh and Brac Bank?
Managing the bank during the pandemic was a big challenge, especially in a country like Bangladesh.
First of all, we had to make big changes in technology, so that our system can be operated from anywhere.
Just as our staff worked across the country, they also worked in Canada and Norway. Still we have a lot of staff who are working virtually.
Moreover, consumer behavior has changed dramatically during this period. But we were somewhat ready for it.
Since 2018, we have launched the first phase of Brac Bank's digital transformation, which ended in 2021 successfully.
The second phase will start later this year, when various new products, internal and external, will be introduced, such as a new banking app, corporate payment solutions, etc.
In 2022, Brac Bank will go through many more technological changes.
There are four main reasons behind this - enhance customer experience, reduce our operating cost, access many more customers geographically, and have complete control of different processes.
The mobile financial services (MFS) industry is booming. What do you think is the next logical step for even greater market penetration?
The pandemic has taught us a lot. MFS is continuously accelerating, which gained speed amid the pandemic. bKash, as a PayTech company, is fully integrated with Brac Bank.
They recently got a $250 million investment from a Japanese company for development, which will be spent on various activities, including marketing.
What steps do you think the government and Bangladesh Bank have taken to play a significant role in the banking sector?
The government and the central bank have taken timely decisions in the last two years on a number of issues, including stimulus packages and credit subsidies.
Without the far-sighted decision of the government, it would have been more difficult for the country's overall economy, including the banking sector, to cope with one Covid wave after another.
'Managing a bank like Brac Bank during the pandemic was a big challenge'
Brac Bank Ltd is moving into its 21st year. Selim RF Hussain, its recently-reappointed managing director and CEO, speaks to Dhaka Tribune's Meraj Mavis in an exclusive interview about what it took to get here and what he envisions for Brac Bank in the future
Brac Bank has been in its 21st year, of which you have served for six years. How would you evaluate your tenure and the whole journey of Brac Bank so far?
I joined Brac Bank in November 2015. Only recently has the bank reappointed me for another four years, until my retirement, which is in March 2026.
If I look back when I joined in 2015, Brac Bank was a moderately-performing bank. But now if we look at the bank's graph, especially its financial matrix with other banks of the country, we can see that Brac Bank has improved significantly.
After 20 years of its establishment, today we lead the industry.
But six years ago, it was a big challenge for me to get the bank to the top of the chain.
Not only that, but in Bangladesh, we are standard-bearers for corporate governance, transparency, ethical banking, sustainable finance, and socio-responsible banking.
Although these core policies were prevalent for the last 20 years, I have been able to take it to another level in the last six years. At least our portfolio indicates that.
What were a few of those significant improvements in the last 5-6 years of your tenure?
Today, if you look at the bank's data like profitability, return on assets, return on equity, capital adequacy, international credit rating, local credit rating, and cost income ratio, you will see that in most of them, Brac Bank is either among the top or is number one.
If you look at our market capitalization, there has been a big change.
Today it is double that of any other bank in the country.
But the truth is that there are seven to eight banks that are bigger than Brac Bank.
There is another bank which is three to four times larger than our bank.
This means that in 5-6 years, as people's confidence in Brac Bank has grown, we have been able to overtake our bigger competitors to reach to the top.
How do you envision Brac Bank in the next four years, compared to the last six?
After completing two tenures here, we have fixed new goals.
The first of which is to forget what we have achieved before. I do not want to be stuck in what I/we have done before.
We want to double the size of our bank.
I want to double the bank's businesses in the next four years.
One thing I always remember, which our founding member Sir Fazle Hasan Abed had said, “small is beautiful but big is impactful.”
Brac Bank wants to be big now, not only in big cities like Dhaka and Chittagong, but all over the country.
Has the board of directors supported you in all your decisions? How do you perceive Brac Bank without Sir Fazle Hasan Abed?
Yes, after his departure the board has changed a lot.
It has been a great privilege in my life to learn to work from someone like Sir Abed.
In fact, no matter how well you study or know, learning on the job is a different matter.
I learned about development banking, socially-responsible banking and values-based banking from him.
Although I had learned the fundamentals about these from Dr Atiur Rahman in the beginning of my career, Sir Abed solidified those aspects inside me.
It is not possible to make up for the loss caused by his departure. But we want to move forward with his legacy.
Moreover, the new board, even with those who have come as a new director or chairman, are all following the path shown by him.
The new board, with new directors, is much more versatile and in-depth than when I had joined. I have not faced any operational barriers from them, and I believe will never happen.
What were the main challenges in running a major bank like Brac Bank?
The initial challenge for me was to form a strong management team right after joining.
That team is now immensely skilled and professional. Now I have to maintain that team spirit with collective responsibility and accountability.
I have tried to set an ambition for everyone since the day I joined. I also set a few targets, which was not practiced before.
Once that was set, confidence and enthusiasm came more organically, which fuelled everyone to move forward.
But in regards to teamwork, almost 1,300 Brac Bank employees were laid off between January and August 2020. Was this a routine procedure?
We are a performance-oriented organization. But not everyone can perform equally, especially those in the sales department.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, more specifically in the last one and half years, 1,270 employees left the bank.
Of these, 570 left due to personal reasons.
The rest were sales personnel, and we lose a lot of them every year.
But I can assure you that, if they cannot reach their set targets, we give them chances.
However, when those chances were exhausted, they left automatically, it is not because of Covid-19.
Yes, you are right it is a routine procedure. Moreover, if you look at our recruitment volume, you will see that our hiring volume is higher than others, that is why the layoff volume is also more.
Brac Bank always says that the CMSME sector is of utmost importance. How was the loan disbursement process for this sector, especially amid the pandemic?
Bangladesh Bank recognized us for providing maximum credit to the CMSME sector last year.
Last year, the target was to disburse loans of Tk1,100 crore in the CMSE sector. But we have disbursed more than Tk300 crore then the given target, meaning it was Tk1,400 crore.
This year we have been given the same goal of Tk1,400 crore, of which 62% has already been disbursed.
Generally, 53% of the total loans of Brac Bank has gone to this sector. Of the remaining loans, 30% have been disbursed to the corporate sector and 18% to the retail sector.
How has the Covid-19 pandemic changed banking operations in Bangladesh and Brac Bank?
Managing the bank during the pandemic was a big challenge, especially in a country like Bangladesh.
First of all, we had to make big changes in technology, so that our system can be operated from anywhere.
Just as our staff worked across the country, they also worked in Canada and Norway. Still we have a lot of staff who are working virtually.
Moreover, consumer behavior has changed dramatically during this period. But we were somewhat ready for it.
Since 2018, we have launched the first phase of Brac Bank's digital transformation, which ended in 2021 successfully.
The second phase will start later this year, when various new products, internal and external, will be introduced, such as a new banking app, corporate payment solutions, etc.
In 2022, Brac Bank will go through many more technological changes.
There are four main reasons behind this - enhance customer experience, reduce our operating cost, access many more customers geographically, and have complete control of different processes.
The mobile financial services (MFS) industry is booming. What do you think is the next logical step for even greater market penetration?
The pandemic has taught us a lot. MFS is continuously accelerating, which gained speed amid the pandemic. bKash, as a PayTech company, is fully integrated with Brac Bank.
They recently got a $250 million investment from a Japanese company for development, which will be spent on various activities, including marketing.
What steps do you think the government and Bangladesh Bank have taken to play a significant role in the banking sector?
The government and the central bank have taken timely decisions in the last two years on a number of issues, including stimulus packages and credit subsidies.
Without the far-sighted decision of the government, it would have been more difficult for the country's overall economy, including the banking sector, to cope with one Covid wave after another.
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