State-owned Sammilito Islami Bank PLC, formed by merging five private Shariah-based banks, officially commenced operations under a single management on Sunday.
With this, Sammilito Islami Bank has established full control over Exim Bank, First Security Islami Bank, Global Islami Bank, Union Bank, and Social Islami Bank.
Recently, Bangladesh Bank withdrew administrators from Global Islami Bank and Union Bank. As a result, control of all five merged banks has now been fully handed over to the newly formed board of directors and management of Sammilito Islami Bank.
Arief Hossain Khan, spokesperson and executive director of Bangladesh Bank, stated: "All five banks have been handed over. Since all banks are now under Sammilito Islami Bank, single management operations have started on Sunday."
Earlier on July 30, the central bank withdrew the administrator and his team from Exim Bank.
Since then, the bank's activities were being conducted under the supervision of the board of directors and managing director of Sammilito Islami Bank.
On July 20, the board of directors of Bangladesh Bank took an in-principle decision to transfer full control of the five merged banks to Sammilito Islami Bank.
It was announced at the time that as administrators were withdrawn from a bank, full control of that bank would transfer to the new bank.
In line with that decision, administrators were gradually withdrawn from the five banks. On July 16, Abedur Rahman Sikder assumed duty as the Managing Director of Sammilito Islami Bank.
Sammilito Islami Bank was formed by bringing five financially distressed Shariah-based banks under the bank resolution process.
The merger process moved forward by bringing the assets and liabilities of Exim Bank, First Security Islami Bank, Global Islami Bank, Union Bank, and Social Islami Bank under the new bank.
Bangladesh Bank issued the final license under the name "Sammilito Islami Bank" on December 1, 2025.
Prior to this, on November 5 of the same year, the central bank appointed administrators to all five banks as part of the merger process.
The new bank is essentially an initiative to manage the assets, liabilities, branches, and customer bases of the five crisis-ridden banks under a unified structure.
Consequently, this has become an example of a major merger and restructuring process in the country's banking sector.
With the existing network of the five merged banks, the operational scope of Sammilito Islami Bank is quite large.
Currently, the bank has 760 branches, 698 sub-branches, 511 agent banking outlets, and 975 ATM booths across the country.
However, although control has been transferred following the withdrawal of administrators, the names and technological frameworks of all branches and service structures will not change immediately.
The branches and other services of the respective banks are currently operating under their existing names.
Moving forward, the primary challenge will be to integrate the technological systems, account management, customer data, transactions, and other operations of these banks into a single technological platform under Sammilito Islami Bank.
NPLs at Tk165,000cr
One of the biggest challenges facing the new bank is the immense volume of non-performing loans (NPLs).
According to updated data from Bangladesh Bank, at the end of March this year, NPLs in the five merged banks reached Tk165,779 crore. At that time, 84.22% of the total loans across these banks were default loans.
In addition to defaulted loans, determining the true state of assets and liabilities across the five banks, dealing with poor asset management, and preventing new loan defaults in the future will also be critical.
The paid-up capital of Sammilito Islami Bank has been set at Tk35,000 crore. Of this, the government provided Tk20,000 crore. The remaining Tk15,000 crore is expected to be added to the capital by converting depositors' funds into shares.
The authorized capital of the bank is Tk40,000 crore.
With the government providing a large amount of capital, steps have been taken to strengthen the financial foundation of the new bank. However, to make the bank sustainable in the long run, capital infusion alone will not suffice; recovering default loans, ensuring good governance, strengthening risk management, and rebuilding depositor trust will also be essential.
