Dollar manipulation

MDs of 6 banks exonerated, treasury chiefs to be reinstated

Shanaullah Sakib

Dhaka

The Bangladesh Bank has exonerated six banks' managing directors who were accused of dollar price manipulation and the central bank also allowed reinstating the banks' treasury chiefs who were removed from their posts.

The banks were asked to transfer half of their profits made in dollar business in May-June to income sector and the remaining half to the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) sector.

The BB earlier asked the banks to separately keep the whole amount of profit.

The banks are--- Prime Bank, Brac Bank, The City Bank, Dutch-Bangla, Southeast Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.

A letter signed by regulation and policy department’s director disclosed the decision at 6:00pm today, Thursday.

Confirming the development, BB’s executive director and spokesperson Sirazul Islam told Prothom Alo, “The MDs of the banks have apologized and ensured us no such violation would happen in future. That’s why the matter has been settled. The treasury chiefs of the six banks can also go back to work.”

On 17 August, the BB sent show-cause notices to MDs of six banks for allegedly destabilizing the dollar market by making excessive profit.

The treasury chiefs of the six banks were removed from their duties on 8 August.

The foreign banks started turning away from Bangladeshi banks due to these decisions and instability in the dollar market.

They stopped extending loan facility to Bangladeshi banks. Also, the foreign banks are also not allowing some Bangladeshi banks to use the credit line.

As a result, some Bangladeshi banks are facing problems in terms of imports and the cost of imports has also increased.

Under such circumstances, the central bank also permitted the market to set the price of dollars based on demand and supply.

Moreover, the measures taken against the banks are being withdrawn.