‘Fear of losing jobs, salary cut in banks’

Bankers have been passing through fear and anxiety that they may face salary cuts and job losses amid coronavirus pandemic.

They blame the government and the Bangladesh Bank for this uncertainty.

The banks which mainly depend on providing retail loans and small and medium enterprise (SME) loans, face the crisis most because of reducing the interest rate at 9 per cent since April 2020.

Now providing retail and SME sector loans have been halted.

Bankers engaged in the disbursement of such loans are at a risk of losing jobs. Meanwhile, many banks have started the process of cutting jobs.

The recovery of loans remains halted due to coronavirus. Moreover, the depositors are withdrawing their money due to the reduction of income and interest rate. Following the BB decision, the expenditure of banks has increased to provide special incentives to the bank officials for discharging duties during the coronavirus. However, the incentive has been stopped now.

Following a letter of Bangladesh Association of Bank (BAB), Exim Bank reduced salaries of its employees. Although the salaries of bankers were reduced, but the decision remains pending to decrease the profits, fees for attending meetings and other facilities of directors.

ABA chairman Nazrul Islam Majumder said the reduction of profit is not a solution. General people are the owners of 70 per cent of shares. So all type of expenditures have to be reduced for survival, he added.

Sources said the financial institutions are also under pressure. Lanka Bangla Finance has already reduced the number of its employees.

Its managing director Khwaja Shahriar said, “We have been facing a crisis from last year. The crisis has deepened further due to fixing interest rates and coronarvirus. We are neither able to recover loans nor getting deposits. Those who are left out, could not fulfill target in 2019.”

The Association of Bankers Bangladesh (ABB) chairman and Eastern Bank managing director Ali Reza Iftekhar said, “It is not time to take decisions to decrease the salaries and allowances of bankers. We have to wait for the rest of the year. At the end of the year, the decision may be taken if the board of directors so thinks.”

*This report, originally published in Prothom Alo print edition, has been rewritten in English by Rabiul Islam.