Rabiul Alam : The country’s banks are looking for good borrowers to uphold profits as the liquidity in banking sector is increasing day by day and the government has recently announced to reduce loan demand.
The excess liquidity in the banking sector stands at more than Tk 209,000 crore as of now and the banks started offering special facilities to get best borrowers of other banks. Allegations are found that to curb pressure for excess liquidity, some banks even discouraging in taking deposit, sources said.
According to the upgraded data of Bangladesh Bank (BB), the amount of deposit in banking sector has now stood at Tk 12,68,000 crore, while liquidity amount reached to Tk 4,14,357.56 crore at the end of December last year.
As per rules of Central Bank, Tk 2,09,438.54 crore should have been kept for that time. As result, excess liquidity amount stood at more than Tk 2,04,738 crore.
A total amount of liquidity was Tk 335,797.57 crore till the end of June last year. In span of six months, excess liquidity stood Tk 78,559.99 crore at the end of December. However, government’s announcement of not taking loans as before makes the situation more worsen for banks.
Bankers revealed that corporate clients are looking for loans in different banks in lower interest. Many of them are also trying to get back to state owned banks. Some institutions divided loan portfolio in two sections. They are taking new loans in lower interest and repaying old ones with higher interest. Meanwhile, even from pre COVID-19, entrepreneurs had less demand for loan. Growth of loan flow in private sector was also negative in 2019. That growth becomes negative once again in COVID-19 pandemic.
At that time, banks provided some loans to government from liquidity. But government recently said it would reduce borrowing from banks, as a result it impacted on revised Monetary Policy of Bangladesh Bank (BB). BB revised Monetary Policy for the rest six months of FY 2020-21 as government loan demand reduces.
Loan target had been reduced for different levels of the government in July. Loan flow in government and private sector has also reduced.
Sources said, banks provided some amount of liquidity for less demand of private sectors. They provided the loans through investment in different securities. But for a decrease of loan flow in government sectors, the banks started announcing different facilities for the good borrowers of other banks to hold out profits.
Among them, Dutch-Bangla Bank announced to purchase loan of other banks by 7.50 percent. For this, the bank gives target to bank officials. Branches of the bank situated at Motijheel area distributed leaflets in this regard. Officials of the bank are seen narrating advantages of the loans. If any customer takes loan from any bank, other bank can take the loan by repaying entire money. It is called “Takeover” in banking system.
Government defined nine percent interest rate for all loans without credit card from April of last year. But some banks provided this facility later. Though there is nine percent interest rate now, moreover, Dutch-Bangla keens to purchase the loans by 7.5 percent.
Besides, officials of some private banks are proposing different customers over phone to take over the loans.
Allegations have been intensified that authorities concerned of some branches of private banks are discouraging in taking deposit.
Seeking anonymity, a bank official said that, they had taken deposit by giving 7.5 percent in December, but in January it declined further.
