IFIC Bank set free from Salman F Rahman's control 

Bangladesh Bank (BB) has dissolved the IFIC Bank’s board of directors and replaced it with a new one, excluding its former chairman Salman F Rahman.

With this, the bank has been set free from the control of the former chairman, who was also the private industry and investment adviser to ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina. 

The central bank said in a letter to the IFIC Bank’s managing director (MD) that the initiative aims at safeguarding interests of the depositors as well as the bank, in addition to ensuring good governance. 

In the new board, the banking sector regulator appointed four independent directors – Mehmud Hossain, former MD of National Bank; Ebtadul Islam, former executive director of BB; Sajjad Jahir, professor of BRAC University; and Kazi Md Mahbub Kashem, a chartered accountant – and two representative directors – Golam Mostafa, additional secretary to the finance division; and Manjurul Haque, its joint secretary. 

Salman F Rahman served the bank as its chairman from 2015, while his son Ahmed Shayan Fazlur Rahman was its vice chairman as well as director. During his tenure at the bank, Salman allegedly took out more than Tk 100 billion from the bank under various pretexts. 

Also, he raised a huge sum of money from the banks and the people by floating different bonds. 

Following the downfall of the Awami League government, Salman went into hiding, but the police arrested him from the capital’s Sadarghat area after a few days.