High NPL concerns IMF

The visiting mission of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has expressed concern over the high amount of non-performing loans (NPL) in Bangladesh’s banking sector, especially in the state-run banks.

The IMF delegation led by the global lender’s Mission Chief Rahul Anand held meetings with the high officials of Bangladesh Bank (BB) on October 27, 30 and 31 at the BB headquarters in Dhaka.

Bangladesh is seeking $4.5 billion in loans from the IMF and the issue was a key point during those sessions.

The visiting team also met with the central bank’s Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder on Wednesday to give him updates about its mission.

They discussed with the BB governor about the present situation and issues of the banking sector, the central bank’s initiatives for banking reforms, the high NPL rate and other related issues, according to senior BB officials.

They said that trade deficit, cross-border interbank loans, gross reserves, external loans, exchange rate development, oil import volume, monetary and exchange rate issues, net reserve calculations, and current challenges were also discussed in the meeting.

The IMF team asked the central bank to take initiatives for reducing the high number of NPL, officials said.

At the end of June this year, the total amount of NPLs had risen to Tk 1,25,258 crore, which was 8.96 per cent of the banking sector’s total outstanding loans. On June 30 last year, the banking sector’s total amount of NPLs was Tk 99,205 crore.