BB to strengthen bank surveillance

Bangladesh Bank will introduce a software-based inspection tool to strengthen its monitoring system on the country’s banking sector.
The inspectors of the central bank will be able to know the financial risks of branches of the banks before starting their inspections by using the tool.
After getting conception of the financial situation, the inspectors will give their maximum concentration on the special zone of a branch to unearth any financial scam or irregularity.
A BB official told New Age on Thursday that the inspection tool would be one kind of MS Excel Solution namely ‘Pre-Inspection Assessment Report’ (PIAR).
He said that the PIAR would play as a risk calculator or a risk identification tool of a branch.
The inspectors of the BB will give input on the outstanding overdue loans and non-performing loans, write-off loans and the export bills which are yet to be repatriated at the PIAR to calculate the risks of a branch, he said.
Disbursement of SME and Farm loans related information, credit distribution under the account with initial deposit of Tk 10 and loan disbursement to women will also be entered in the PIAR.
At the PIAR, the inspectors will also give input on the asset quality related report of a branch meaning that whether the disbursed loan become defaulter.
The recovery of classified loans and write-off loans related information will also be included in the software to prepare the pre-inspection report.
The BB official said that the new tool would bring huge change in the traditional inspection system as the inspectors now do not take any prior conception to run their investigation in a branch.
The new system will help a lot for the new inspectors of the central bank, who have no adequate experiences in the inspections, the BB official said.
The report of PIAR will give a guideline to the new inspectors to complete their inspections, he said.
The central bank has already arranged a number of workshops for its inspectors of different departments in this regard so that they can use the software easily, he said.
The BB has recently started the use of software on experimental basis and it will run the PIAR full-fledged within this year, he said.
BB executive director Mohammad Naushad Ali Chowdhury told New Age on Friday that the inspectors would take prior conception of a branch before going there to conduct inspection.
The inspectors will be able to fulfill their homework about their inspections by using the reports of PIAR tool, he said.
The new tool will strengthen more the central bank’s inspection system and it will help the inspectors to detect the financial crime, he said.
The existing manual-based inspection system will enter into the digitized system when the PIAR will be formally introduced, Naushad said.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net