BD Financial Review
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Banking & FDR

Foreign Banks in Bangladesh See Profit Fall 38% in H1 While Treasury Bets Lift Domestic Rivals

Bangladesh's nine foreign commercial banks saw combined net profit fall 38% to Tk2,321 crore in the first half of 2026, hit by weak trade financing and energy shortages. At the same time, many domestic listed banks posted strong profit growth, driven almost entirely by investment income from government securities rather than new lending. Foreign banks still carry a far lower bad loan ratio and much stronger capital buffers than the sector average.

October 15, 2026Read more

Sonali Bank Lends National Bank Tk7,000 Crore as a Deposit Rush Tests Bangladesh's Bailout Plan

State-owned Sonali Bank has lent Tk7,000 crore to National Bank, fully guaranteed by Bangladesh Bank, after about 7,500 withdrawal requests arrived at the troubled lender in three days. The loan is meant to help National Bank meet an October 15 deadline to resume full withdrawals. The bank still owes the central bank over Tk10,000 crore from an earlier unpaid loan, a reminder of how deep its problems, rooted in the Sikder family era, still run.

October 14, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank Lets BRAC Bank's Biggest Shareholder Triple Its Board Seats

Bangladesh Bank has relaxed a board rule specifically for BRAC Bank, letting its largest shareholder appoint up to three representative directors instead of just one. The 12 October circular benefits BRAC, which an official said holds 46 percent of the bank's shares. It is the second such case-specific exemption this year, after a similar one for Trust Bank in March.

October 13, 2026Read more

IDRA's Third Payout Round Pushes Insurance Claim Settlements Past Tk64 Crore

The Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority paid Tk26.37 crore to 7,641 policyholders on 4 October, its largest settlement round yet and the third in a rolling drive that has now cleared Tk63.91 crore for 16,058 policyholders since early September. Padma Islami Life Insurance policyholders received the biggest share of the latest round, Tk9 crore to 2,348 people, with five other life insurers also represented. The payments come from insurers' own assets and government securities rather than a government bailout, part of a push by IDRA Chairman Mir Nadia Nivin to rebuild confidence in a sector where claims have sat unpaid for years.

October 12, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank Chief Puts a Price on the Bank Heist: Tk60,000 Crore a Year for Up to Eight Years

Bangladesh Bank Governor Md Mostaqur Rahman says recovering the capital drained from the country's banking system will cost Tk60,000 crore a year for five to eight years, money that could otherwise have supported 2 crore families or built two Padma Bridges. He says a third of the system's funds had already been stolen by the time he took office, and central bank data show non performing loans have climbed to 32.78% of all outstanding credit. Industry trackers now rank Bangladesh's bad loan ratio as the worst of any country they follow, ahead of war torn Ukraine.

October 12, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank Injects Fresh Liquidity Into National Bank So Depositors Can Finally Withdraw in Full From October 15

After months of rationed withdrawals and a High Court petition from depositors, Bangladesh Bank has agreed to inject fresh liquidity into National Bank PLC so it can meet withdrawal demand in full. The bank's board says every branch and ATM will serve customers on demand from October 15. Here is how National Bank, with a non performing loan ratio above 59 percent, got here, and what it means for its depositors and borrowers.

October 11, 2026Read more

The Card Network Outage Bangladesh Bank Called a Coincidence Was Actually a Vendor Sabotage Fight

When card and ATM services went dark at roughly 30 Bangladeshi banks on October 4, Bangladesh Bank called it a coincidental overlap of routine maintenance at several institutions. Three days later, the real story came out: the local payment processor running the Q-Cash network accused its outgoing Russian technology partner of planting a malicious script that kept crashing the system, after a dispute over a costly platform migration. Bangladesh Bank has now summoned the processor and threatened show cause notices against member banks, even as questions remain about why the public was told a different story first.

October 9, 2026Read more

Bangladesh's Tk20,000 Crore Factory Revival Fund Has Disbursed Just Tk50 Crore So Far

Four months after Bangladesh Bank launched a Tk20,000 crore fund to revive closed and underutilized factories, the scheme has disbursed just Tk50 crore to three borrowers, while 25 applicants asking for Tk750 crore wait for approval. Business leaders say bank board meetings needed to clear applications are taking up to a month to convene, and point to a clean credit record requirement that may be screening out the very distressed firms the fund was meant to rescue. The complaints echo warnings raised when the scheme first launched in June, suggesting the bottleneck was predictable rather than unforeseen.

October 7, 2026Read more

19 Bangladeshi Banks Suspend Card and ATM Services for Up to Six Days During Network Upgrade

Nineteen banks across Bangladesh suspended card, ATM and digital payment services for stretches ranging from a few hours to nearly six days starting October 4, as the Q-Cash payment network underwent a scheduled system migration. Bangladesh Bank says each bank made its own decision, but the outages happened to cluster in the same window, hitting ATM withdrawals, POS payments, e-commerce checkouts and interbank transfers through the National Payment Switch. The disruption comes just weeks after the central bank made Bangla QR payments free and instant, a reminder that the country's digital payment rails still run on infrastructure prone to synchronized outages. Branch counters stayed open throughout, and most banks warned customers by SMS before the maintenance window began.

October 6, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank Brings a Five Year Bad Loan Roadmap to Parliament, Betting on Private Firms to Buy Up Distressed Debt

Bangladesh Bank has presented a five year, thirteen point roadmap to parliament's finance ministry standing committee for tackling a non-performing loan pile the central bank itself puts at Tk6.06 lakh crore, roughly a third of all disbursed credit. The plan leans heavily on a proposed Distressed Asset Management Act that would let licensed private firms, from local entrepreneurs to foreign private equity funds, buy bad loans directly from banks and recover them commercially, alongside new risk based supervision and a rewritten bankruptcy law. It arrives two days after BD Financial Review reported Bangladesh Bank's own 18 month plan for bullet payment settlements, and a day after BASIC Bank's September figures showed 64.49 percent of its book still classified as bad more than a decade after its own scandal, underscoring how far implementation still has to travel from legislation to a single struggling bank's balance sheet.

October 6, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank Softens Family-Control Rules for Banks, Unveils 18-Month Plan to Cut Bad Loans

The finance ministry has softened Bangladesh Bank's proposed Bank Company Act amendments meant to curb family control of private banks, keeping the cap at three family directors per board instead of cutting it to two as the central bank wanted, even as it tightened tenure limits and broadened the legal definition of family. The decision landed the same week Bangladesh Bank unveiled an 18 month plan to accelerate recovery of non-performing loans through bullet payment settlements and one time exit facilities, after data showed classified loans at Tk606,555 crore, a 32.78 percent ratio still among the highest in the world. Former governor Ahsan H Mansur warned that without the fuller amendments, improving bank governance will be hindered, while separate reporting shows roughly Tk3 lakh crore of bad debt concentrated among just 5,775 large borrowers. Together the two moves capture a regulator trying to fix both weak governance and a mountain of bad loans at once, while political and business pressure slows down the governance half of that effort.

October 3, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank Expands Export Refinance Fund to Tk7,000 Crore, But Raises the Price Exporters Pay

Bangladesh Bank has expanded its Export Facilitation Pre-finance Fund from Tk5,000 crore to Tk7,000 crore, the central bank confirmed on October 1, giving exporters a larger pool of pre-shipment credit to draw on. The move comes with a catch: the maximum rate banks can charge exporters under the scheme rises from 5 to 6 percent, and the rate banks pay Bangladesh Bank climbs from 2 to 3 percent. The expansion lands the same week BD Financial Review reported September export growth of 8.54 percent alongside warnings from industry leaders about rising costs and buyers diversifying away from Bangladesh, and it is one of more than Tk10,000 crore in refinance schemes the central bank now runs across export, green and digital sectors.

October 2, 2026Read more

Five Banks to Raise Tk3,500 Crore Through New Bonds to Shore Up Capital

Five private banks, One Bank, Southeast Bank, BRAC Bank, Al-Arafah Islami Bank and Bank Asia, have won BSEC approval to raise a combined Tk3,500 crore through privately placed bonds, most of them subordinated debt meant to strengthen Tier II capital under Basel III. BRAC Bank's Tk1,000 crore issue stands out as a three year zero coupon green bond rather than a conventional capital instrument. The round is roughly 75 percent larger than a similar five bank bond approval in November 2024, reflecting a banking sector under sustained pressure to keep capital buffers well above regulatory minimums.

October 1, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank Raises Depositor Refund Cap to Tk50 Lakh for Four Collapsed NBFIs

Bangladesh Bank has approved a tiered repayment scheme guaranteeing full principal recovery of up to Tk50 lakh for depositors of four collapsed non bank financial institutions, up sharply from the previous flat Tk10 lakh cap. Aviva Finance, Fareast Finance, FAS Finance and International Leasing owe a combined Tk12,483 crore to depositors after their non performing loan ratios climbed as high as nearly 100 percent. The central bank dissolved the boards of all four institutions in August and appointed administrators, following a broader clean up that has already targeted 20 underperforming NBFIs since last year. Larger depositors above Tk50 lakh will recover progressively smaller shares of their money under a sliding scale, while the vast majority of ordinary savers are expected to get their full principal back.

September 27, 2026Read more

Bangladesh's Politically Approved Banks Are Sinking Deeper Into Bad Debt

Banks approved in Bangladesh's two politically driven licensing rounds, in 2013 and 2018-19, are sinking deeper into distress, with several posting non performing loan ratios above 90 percent. Union Bank lost Tk25,790 crore in 2024 just a year after turning a profit, while Global Islami Bank's bad loans jumped from Tk221 crore to Tk14,219 crore over the same period. The trouble sits inside a banking sector where total non performing loans hit Tk6,06,555 crore in June, giving Bangladesh the highest NPL ratio of any country in the world, ahead of war torn Ukraine. A handful of banks from both licensing rounds, including Community Bank and Midland Bank, have avoided the wreckage, suggesting governance rather than licensing history is what actually separates survivors from casualties.

September 27, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Insurance Regulator Pays Tk37.5 Crore, a Fraction of Tk4,403 Crore Owed

Bangladesh's insurance regulator has paid out Tk37.54 crore to 8,417 policyholders across two settlement phases this month, but that is a small fraction of the Tk4,403 crore owed to roughly 12 lakh policyholders. Regulators say some of the 32 troubled insurers involved hid their true finances behind undisclosed double servers for years. IDRA is now liquidating land, bonds and fixed deposits from the worst offenders to fund further payouts, while promising a risk based supervision model by December and a digital policy ID system within four months.

September 21, 2026Read more

Digital Bank Licences Are Coming Soon, Bangladesh Says, After Years of Delay

Finance Minister Amir Khosru Mahmud Chowdhury said on September 19 that Bangladesh will issue digital bank licences very soon, reviving an initiative that has been stuck for nearly three years. Bangladesh Bank approved Nagad Digital Bank and Kori Digital for full licences back in October 2023, but neither had launched operations by late 2024 after both missed their original deadlines and ran into compliance and governance reviews. With a former central bank governor confirming that preparatory groundwork, including applicant lists and licensing criteria, was already done, the question now is whether this fresh push can finally get Bangladesh's first digital only banks off the ground where two previous attempts stalled.

September 20, 2026Read more

Women's Share of Bangladesh's Agent Banking Network Inches Up, Still Far Short of the Central Bank's 50% Target

Women owned 11.5 percent of Bangladesh's agent banking agents as of June, up 23.8 percent from a year earlier but still far below the 50 percent ownership share Bangladesh Bank ordered the industry to reach in a 2025 circular. Rural areas are driving nearly all the progress, with female owned agents there growing almost twice as fast as in cities. Women fare much better as customers, holding 48.6 percent of agent banking deposit accounts, though they receive just 12.72 percent of loans by value, pointing to a persistent credit gap even as the wider agent banking network keeps expanding on almost every other measure.

September 19, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank Tightens Nominee Director Rules and Widens Its Tk20,000 Crore Factory Revival Fund

Bangladesh Bank issued two separate governance orders this week that together reshape how the country's banks are run and financed. New rules require nominee directors to personally own at least 2 percent of a listed bank's shares, or 20 percent at an unlisted one, a response to years of complaints that business groups used employees as stand in directors with no real stake of their own. In a parallel move, the central bank dropped the word large from its Tk20,000 crore pre-financing scheme meant to revive closed factories, opening the low cost fund to a wider range of struggling industrial and service businesses. Both changes build on a year in which Bangladesh Bank has repeatedly tied bank leadership pay and access to cheap credit to stricter performance and governance standards.

September 18, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank Ties CEO Pay and Jobs to New KPI Scorecard as Bad Loans Hit Record 32.78 Percent

Bangladesh Bank has introduced a uniform Key Performance Indicator framework for every scheduled bank's managing director and CEO, grading them on roughly 30 indicators every six months starting October 1, with underperformers facing possible removal and their pay, reappointment and succession directly tied to the results. Three quarters of the score rests on solvency, asset quality and governance, while six critical metrics including the NPL ratio and large loan concentration can trigger an automatic 25 percent penalty if a bank falls below half its target. The framework arrives weeks after this publication reported Bangladesh's non-performing loan ratio hit a record 32.78 percent and detailed a bribery scandal at Bangladesh Commerce Bank, both pointing to the unchecked patronage the new scorecard is meant to check.

September 14, 2026Read more

Bangladesh's Insurance Regulator Pushes Out Another Tk23 Crore in Overdue Claims as It Tries to Rebuild Trust

Bangladesh's Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority is handing out Tk23.03 crore in overdue claims to 5,868 policyholders on September 14, the second such settlement round in less than two weeks and the latest sign of a much larger crisis behind it. Industry data show roughly Tk440.3 billion in unpaid life insurance claims nationwide, affecting an estimated 1.2 million policyholders, with settlement rates that have fallen well below international norms. IDRA is funding these payouts by liquidating distressed insurers' own assets and security bonds rather than waiting for the companies to pay, while pushing for a new ordinance that would give it sharper enforcement powers. The episode echoes the governance failures already exposed in Bangladesh's banking sector this year.

September 13, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Cuts Rates for the First Time in Six Years, But Businesses Still Won't Borrow

Bangladesh Bank cut its policy rate to 9.5 percent in July, its first reduction in six years, yet private sector credit growth fell to 4.47 percent in June, the slowest pace in 33 years. Excess liquidity sitting idle in the banking system has surged to roughly Tk4.08 lakh crore, up nearly 40 percent in a year, as banks find creditworthy borrowers scarce and businesses cite gas and electricity shortages rather than interest rates as the real barrier to expansion. Bankers describe an economy where cheaper money alone is not enough, with years of energy constraints, political uncertainty and a record bad loan ratio all weighing on the willingness to lend and to borrow alike.

September 12, 2026Read more

Tk4 Crore Bribery Scandal at Commerce Bank Exposes Deeper Rot in Bangladesh's Banking Sector

Bangladesh Bank has ordered disciplinary action against 13 officials of Bangladesh Commerce Bank after investigators found Tk4 crore quietly funneled into personal accounts, dressed up on paper as hospitality expenses and deposit incentives, then hauled away in sacks to two private clubs in Dhaka. Two senior officials face outright dismissal, one of them a man already wanted in a separate Tk74 crore embezzlement case at his previous employer. The scandal lands just as the central bank's own data shows non performing loans climbing to 32.78 percent of all outstanding credit, the worst on record, with bankers and economists increasingly blaming exactly this kind of unchecked political and internal patronage for the rot. Regulators are framing individual cases like this one as a test of whether Bangladesh Bank can finally make consequences stick.

September 12, 2026Read more

Ten Banks Now Hold 72 Percent of Bangladesh's Bad Loans as Sector Ratio Hits 32.78 Percent

Bangladesh's non performing loan ratio climbed to 32.78 percent in June 2026, with ten banks alone responsible for more than 72 percent of the sector's Tk 6,06,555 crore bad debt pile. Islami Bank Bangladesh, Janata Bank and First Security Islami Bank lead the list, with several lenders now carrying default ratios above 90 percent. Bangladesh Bank has responded with a longer rescheduling window for big defaulters and a new push to verify inflated loan collateral, though officials admit the crisis runs deeper than any single fix.

September 11, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank Enlists 131 Firms to Check Inflated Loan Collateral

Bangladesh Bank has enlisted 131 valuation firms, split into two tiers, to independently assess the collateral borrowers pledge against bank loans. The move targets a practice that has fed years of loan fraud, artificially inflating the value of land, buildings and machinery to unlock bigger loans than the assets justify. Loans above one crore taka will now require sign off from an approved valuer, with tougher checks for banks already carrying high bad loan ratios. Bankers say the framework could catch fraud earlier, though much depends on how strictly it is enforced.

September 9, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank Lets More Borrowers Use Offshore Dollar Deposits as Loan Collateral

A new Bangladesh Bank circular issued Thursday evening opens up local-currency borrowing against foreign currency held in Offshore Banking Unit accounts to a much wider group of customers. Individual residents, consumer-finance borrowers, and non-resident Bangladeshis can now tap the facility, which was previously limited mostly to companies and firms. No exact lending limits were published, but the central bank says the goal is simply broader access to taka financing without disturbing dollar savings.

September 4, 2026Read more

Sammilito Islami Bank Depositors Can Start Withdrawals September 7 but With a Catch

Depositors of the merged Sammilito Islami Bank PLC will finally be able to withdraw their FDR and deposit principal starting September 7, 2026, six days later than Bangladesh Bank's original target. There is a catch, though: withdrawing a Mudaraba term deposit's full principal in one go means forfeiting any profit earned on it. As the bank works through a capital shortfall exceeding Tk1,50,000 crore, the government is now looking to Qatar as a potential strategic partner.

September 1, 2026Read more

Bangladesh Bank's Rate Cut: What the New 9.5% Policy Rate Means for Your FDR

Bangladesh Bank has cut its policy rate to 9.5 percent, the first easing in years, while quietly reversing a controversial deposit "haircut" on five merged Islamic banks. For anyone with a fixed deposit maturing soon, or taka sitting idle in a savings account, the return calculus just shifted. Here is what it actually means for your money.

August 30, 2026Read more