Bangladesh Bank has asked banks to follow four new guidelines for offshore banking.
The Statistics Department (SD) of the BB issued the notification in this regard on Monday and sent it to the top executives of all the scheduled banks.
Offshore investment is the keeping of money in a jurisdiction other than one's country of residence. Offshore jurisdictions are used to paying less tax in many countries by large and small-scale investors.
The central bank circular said the activities of the Offshore Banking Unit (OBU) are increasing rapidly with the rising economic activities. In such a situation, the BB needs to allocate one OBU code for each OBU action in order to properly collect, compile and store the information and OBU data.
The BB asked banks to follow four guidelines to ensure OBU's data reporting activities.
These are — Banks have to apply to the central bank’s Statistics Department within seven working days along with relevant documents since launching a new OBU programme.
In case of closing an OBU code, banks have been asked to inform the SD and apply for shutdown of the code by seven working days.
Previously assigned OBU codes (including those assigned by FEPD) will remain in force.
The Statistics Department will allocate OBU code only after receiving the approval of the Offshore Banking Unit.
