Bangladesh Bank received nearly 4,000 bank fraud complaints in 2014-15

Moinul Islam Khosru returned to Bangladesh in 2009 after a year in the UK and applied for a bank loan to set up a resort in his native Sylhet.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 30 Nov 2015, 04:16 AM
Updated : 30 Nov 2015, 04:20 AM
He applied for a Tk 70 million loan from a private bank’s Sylhet branch.

Khosru says the bank gave him Tk 25 million initially and assured disbursement of the rest in phases.

“I sought disbursement of Tk 45 million on Dec 27, 2012. The bank approved Tk 35 million and transferred the money to my account,” he said.

But the entrepreneur was stunned when he found there was no money in his account during withdrawal.

He found that Tk 30 million was withdrawn in four cheques on the day of the transfer.

“The bank manager enlisted me as a defaulter by withdrawing the money using the cheque I had submitted [as a deposit],” he said.

“I was in real trouble and my project appeared doomed,” he added.

After failing to move the bank, Khosru lodged a complaint with the Bangladesh Bank’s Financial Integrity and Customer Services Department (FICSD).

“Bangladesh Bank investigated the matter for 15 months and my money has been returned with interest,” Khosru said.

“But I am a defaulter of the first loan I had taken and my project is grounded. Now I am broke,” he added.

Khosru's story came during an event to mark the publication of the 2014-15 annual report of FICSD on Sunday.

Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB) Chairman Ali Reza Iftekhar, who was present at the function as the special guest, said the banker responsible for Khosru’s misery should be punished.

“Because what they did was a financial crime,” he said.

Chief guest Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman instructed the officials to take firm measures to prevent recurrence of such incidents.

Stories such as the one narrated by Khosru were aplenty.

Mahbub Ar Rahman and Manzur Ahmed Chowdhury also had suffered due to bank frauds and were at the event to narrate their harrowing experiences.

The FICSD, formed in July 2012 to curb frauds and forgery in the banking industry, received such 3,930 complaints in 2014-15 fiscal.

State-owned Sonali Bank topped the list with 256 complaints against their branches.

Privately operated BRAC Bank followed second with 175 complaints.

The others with many complaints were Rupali Bank, Agrani Bank, Islami Bank Bangladesh, Janata Bank, Bangladesh Kriishi Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Dutch-Bangla Bank and National Bank.

FICSD General Manager AKM Amjad Hussain told the function that all the complaints could be resolved.

A total of 4,296 complaints were received in 2012-13 fiscal and 2,941 of them (68.46 percent) were resolved.

During 2013-14 fiscal, 4,476 complaints were received and the Bangladesh Bank settled 4,291 (95.87 percent) of them.

Most complaints came over general banking, but some were received over cards, mobile banking, remittance and trade bills.