Bank directors alone have borrowed Tk 1.73 trillion

The unpaid loans taken by the owners of Bangladesh’s banks have topped Tk 1.73 trillion, which is more than 11 percent of the total credit disbursed by them.

The bank directors have borrowed the money mostly from other banks, according to Bangladesh Bank accounts disclosed by Information Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in parliament on Wednesday.

They have taken over Tk 1.71 trillion from the other banks and more than Tk 16.15 billion from their own organisation as of September, 2019.

Out of the 57 commercial banks operating in Bangladesh, only the directors of Rajshahi Krishi Unnayan Bank and Bangladesh Development Bank have taken no bank loans.

Among the other banks, directors of 25 borrowed money from their own institutions.

AB Bank directors top the list with their loans from the bank standing over Tk 9.07 billion, followed by BRAC Bank directors, whose borrowings from the bank is Tk 3.62 billion.

Islami Bank and Exim Bank have not lent any money to their directors but they are top lenders for the owners of other banks with over Tk 191.75 billion and Tk 105.13 billion respectively.

Directors of other banks owe state-owned Janata Bank Tk 101.26 billion, and Tk 7.35 billion to Pubali Bank.

Answering an MP, the finance minister said the default loans given by the banks and financial institutions to 8,238 firms totalled at Tk 969.86 billion.

More than half of them, 4,198, have not repaid a single taka. The other companies have paid a total of Tk 258.36 billion.

The government set a Tk 473.64 billion target to borrow from the banks this fiscal year but crossed it in five months in December, Mustafa Kamal said.