Deposit in banks, where rural people like to keep money, is falling.
Janata Bank’s Abdus Salam Azad claims that in the last two months, the deposit of Janata Bank fell by Tk 26.12 billion. Last September, state-owned Sonali Bank has lost investment to the range of around 50 billion.
Within three months, Rupali Bank’s deposit has fallen by Tk 30 billion with Agrani’s by Tk 15 billion.
Agrani Bank’s MD, Mohammad Shamsul Islam, told Bangla Tribune: “the deposit made by general people is intact; only a few state-owned institutions have withdrawn money which has resulted in the slight fall.”
“If everyone had adhered to decisions of the finance ministry, then volatility with deposit would not be created.”
Bangladesh Bank sources say that compared to June this year, the deposit in the overall banking sector has fallen.
At the end of June, the deposit in the banking sector was Tk 9690.63 billion which came down to Tk 9684.58 billion.
Within a month, the deposit in the banking sector has fallen by 0.6 percent.
Bank officials say that banks lost deposit while trying to implement the decision of Bangladesh Association of Banks (BAB) and the ministry of finance. The joint decision of BAB and the government was that the interest of deposits with a three-month tenure should not exceed 6 percent.
While government banks followed this, the private banks did not. In August last, the deposit of Sonali Bank was Tk 1098 billion which came down to Tk 1050 billion at the end of September, meaning that only in September, the bank lost a deposit of around Tk 50 billion.
Bankers say that due to repeated scandals and high rate of interest on bonds, many have withdrawn money from banks.
On top, to meet import expenditure, banks are buying Dollar from the central bank, which is eating into the deposit.
Agrani Bank’s chairman, Dr Zaed Bakht, told Bangla Tribune: “due to aggressive investment, the deposit has fallen in several banks.”
People have become averse to banks since the publication of some negative news in recent times over fund embezzlement and scams.
According to Bangladesh Bank report, in the last two years, from June 2016 till June 2018, the banks distributed Tk 2402.61 billion against a deposit of Tk 1739.52 billion.
This means, in the last two years, compared to deposit, Tk 663.09 billion has been disbursed as excess loan.