CEOs must be responsible in reducing NPLs: BB governor

Non-performing loans (NPLs) of the country are a major concern now and bank executives are liable to reduce it, said Bangladesh Bank Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder.

“Besides, we have to improve the corporate governance of banks,” said the BB governor while speaking as the chief guest at a two-day-long Digital Transformation Summit organised by the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB) at Pan Pacific Sonargaon in the capital.

The central bank governor made such a comment two days after the ABB Chairman Selim RF Hussain said the banks and central bank alone would not be able to control the NPLs.

“Social commitment is needed to reduce the high NPLs,” he had said in a press conference.

NPLs in the country’s banking sector hit Tk1,20,656 crore at the end of December last year, as per the central bank data. “We have to bring cultural change in the banking sector to ensure corporate governance,” said Abdur Rouf Talukder adding that ethics and training are needed in the sector to solve these problems.

The BB governor said the central bank has taken various steps to build a smart Bangladesh, including the mobile financial services and Bangla Q.

He said the banking operations holistically changed all over the world because of the intervention of artificial intelligence (AI) in the era of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR). The bankers have to prepare themselves digitally to cope with rapid change in the business.

The two-day ‘Digital Transformation Summit’ has brought together around 150 participants from Bangladesh’s 46 commercial banks.