Financial sector's future hinges on effective execution of three-year reform

Bangladesh has committed to a sweeping overhaul of its troubled financial sector, outlining a detailed three-year roadmap as part of its latest agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

Modern, reliable, technologically advanced banks might be the engines for Bangladesh's next development boom.

The banking industry as a business is inherently risky.

Former land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Javed compelled UCB board members to resign and former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was aware of this, according to the lender’s new Chairman Sharif Zahir.

The central bank has just reconstituted the board of United Commercial Bank (UCB) for financial wrongdoings, but it has a darker past – a takeover at gunpoint by a politically influential family over a quarter of a century ago.

The family of former land minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Javed lost its grip on United Commercial Bank (UCB) yesterday as the Bangladesh Bank dissolved the lender’s board of directors.

The interim government will soon form a banking commission, a longstanding demand from economists, to bring about reforms aimed at salvaging the financial sector, which has been suffering from high default loans and weak governance.

In February 2019, the central bank lowered the timeframe to three years from five years. And what has that achieved?

The banking sector should go through holistic reforms to strengthen the country’s financial base in order to become an upper middle-income nation by 2031, Asian Development Bank’s Country Director Edimon Ginting said.