The Social Islami Bank LTD (SIBL) – a second-generation commercial bank – has hidden a defaulted loan amount of Tk 7924 crore to Bangladesh Bank (BB).
A central bank deputy governor who also resigned on Monday cooperated with the SIBL to hide the large volume of defaulted loans.
Apart from this, the bank owned by S Alam Group is not able to declare dividends as a result of a shortfall in provision. A confidential report from the BB revealed such terrible information.
According to the report, at the end of December 2023, the defaulted loans of Social Islami Bank stood at Tk 9568 crore.
However, in the report sent to the central bank, the SIBL has shown defaulted loans of Tk 1644 crore only. Here, SIBL has hidden the information of Tk 7924 crore of defaulted loans.
Besides, at the same time, the inspection team of the regulatory agency found a provision deficit of Tk 8127 crore in the bank. But the bank has shown a provision deficit of Tk 64 crore only in the report. In this, SIBL hid Tk 8063 crore of provision deficit.
An inspection team of the central bank got this information by observing 5 main branches in Dhaka and 7 branches outside Dhaka at the end of December 2023.
“We were shocked after visiting the bank. It’s not a pond theft, it's like stealing the whole sea. Where there is a provision shortfall of Tk 8127 crore, the information has been concealed showing a shortfall of only Tk 64 crore,” said an official of the off-site supervision department.
