AKM Zamir Uddin

The country’s banking sector has seen a declining trend of lending in recent days as the majority of businesses have put on hold their expansion plans or trading due to the ongoing economic fallout from the global coronavirus pandemic.

The government is mulling over leveraging the state-run lenders’ vast branch network to implement a major portion of the stimulus packages.

The central bank yesterday directed banks to transfer all interest accrued or to be accrued between April 1 and May 31 this year from all of their loans to an interest-free blocked account, in what can be construed as its boldest move yet amid the pandemic.

Nazma Begum, a housewife and a mother-of-three, has been fretting the last three months. Her source of worry?

Government agencies and banks have almost completed their preparations to implement 18 stimulus packages worth Tk 95,619 crore to tackle the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

Workers of the export-oriented industries can take a sigh of relief as banks would be disbursing their wages from today from the government’s stimulus package of Tk 5,000 crore.

Credit cards were slowly but surely finding a place in consumers’ hearts in recent years, thanks to a combination of banks’ aggressive push, a growing aspirational middle-class population and increasing awareness of the convenience the payment tool provides.

The global rating agency Moody’s Investors Service yesterday gave a negative outlook for the country’s banking sector for the next 12 to 18 months as coronavirus-induced disruptions to domestic and export demand is deteriorating lenders’ credit profiles.

At least 10 industry bodies have applied to both the finance ministry and the Bangladesh Bank to get financial support from the Tk 5,000 crore stimulus package for the export-oriented industries.

Nagad, a mobile financial service provider of the Bangladesh Post Office and a private entity, has received an interim licence from the Bangladesh Bank, as part of its push towards digital money amid the pandemic.

Adversity brings out the best in man, William Shakespeare once said.

In the first 10 working days of every month, the Agrabad branch of state-run Sonali has to give financial services to at least 2,000 to 3,000 clients, some of whom are pensioners or beneficiaries of the government’s social safety net schemes.

There seems to be finally some light at the end of the tunnel for the agriculture sector as the central bank and agriculture ministry have finalised a Tk 5,000 crore rescue package for farmers, rice millers, producers of all agro-products and owners of dairy farms.

Banks have decided to call upon the central bank to take more policy measures to allow them to implement the lion’s share of the government’s Tk 72,500 crore bailout package efficiently amid business collapse, tight liquidity situation and higher defaulted loans.

Banks will face trouble in implementing the government’s Tk 72,500 crore bailout package due to their ongoing liquidity crunch that has been compounded by the coronavirus pandemic.

The central bank has taken an initiative to form a large bailout package for farmers, who have seen a complete collapse in demand for their produce for the countrywide movement control order enforced by the government with a view to flattening the curve on coronavirus.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has asked banks in the eurozone to not pay any dividend in order to boost their capacity to absorb losses that will invariably take place for the global coronavirus pandemic that has brought the world down on its knees.

There is no question that the export-oriented sectors, particularly garment, have been dealt a cruel blow by the global coronavirus pandemic. Which is why, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on March 25 have rolled out a Tk 5,000 crore stimulus package for them.

Banks’ capacity to provide loans at 9 per cent interest has shrunk even before the government-fixed ceiling is implemented as both individuals and corporate institutions are withdrawing deposits to protect themselves from the ongoing economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

The country’s foreign exchange regime is cruising towards headwinds due to the dwindling exports and remittances thanks to the global economic slowdown brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.