BP Report
Speakers at a workshop said that growing financial crimes, especially trade based money laundering, has become a cause of concern for the policy makers that needs to be addressed with utmost importance.
In Bangladesh, relying on formal payment arrangement and stringent reporting and monitoring framework are very relevant for restricting financial outflows through trade channels. Trade facilitating banks need more effort and investment in this connection while bank board members should be brought under awareness for better compliance of regulatory reporting requirements, they added.
They were speaking at a review workshop on ‘Regulatory Reporting Requirements for Banks’ held at the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM) on Monday.
S.M. Moniruzzaman, chairman, BIBM executive committee and deputy governor of the Bangladesh Bank was present in the roundtable as the chief guest. Helal Ahmed Chowdhury, supernumerary professor of BIBM and former managing director of Pubali Bank Limited, Yasin Ali, former supernumerary professor of BIBM; Muklesur Rahman, managing director & CEO of Shimanto Bank Limited; Faruq Mainuddin Ahmed, managing director & CEO of Trust Bank Limited spoke, among others, at the event.
Md. Nazimuddin, executive director of the Bangladesh Bank and Director General of BIBM delivered welcome address. Professor Barkat-e-Khuda, professor, BIBM Muzaffer Ahmed Chair and former professor of Dhaka University chaired the programme, said a press release.
A paper titled ‘Regulatory Reporting Requirements for Banks’ was presented in the review workshop by Dr. Shah Md. Ahsan Habib, professor and director (Training) of BIBM. Other members of the research team are Nehal Ahmed, Professor, BIBM; Tofayel Ahmed, assistant professor, BIBM; Md. Arifuzzaman, A S Shahabuddin, Mohammad Anisur Rahman, deputy general managers and Mohammad Saiful Islam, joint director of Bangladesh Bank.
A good number of participants including senior bank executives, academicians, media representatives, faculty members of BIBM took part in the workshop.
According to the BIBM study, capable bank executives should be placed for pursuing such vital roles. Thus, with the introduction of new set of compliance rules and new regulatory requirements, there must have the arrangement for due capacity development of the bankers.
Training and capacity development institutes, especially Bangladesh Bank Training Academy (BBTA) and BIBM may be engaged in the process to play roles. BBTA or BIBM may organize joint training programmes with the concerned department of Bangladesh Bank following the introduction of a new regulatory reporting and compliance requirement, they added.
Top management and board of banks should also be brought under capacity development programmes for better enforcement.
Deputy governor said, regulatory reporting requirements increased significantly over the years to generate accurate reports in a timely manner globally and locally. Greater compliance and regulatory reporting requirements brought notable changes in terms of complexities, high cost and consumption of business hours of the bank executives.
He also said, regulatory reports are collected for several purposes and bank regulators require different types of reports that may be categorized under different dimensions. By analyzing the reported data, BB conducts its monitoring and supervision; identify and address problems; prepare Balance of Payment; formulate monetary and other policies; assess the financial health of the banking sector as a whole and conduct research for publications he added.
Director General of BIBM said, output of the study along with opinions and observations would help BB to take future actions.
Barkat-e-Khuda said, “We need to work together for getting expected results for our financial sector. I hope the deliberation of this review workshop will be very helpful for all concerned. I also expect that researchers will incorporate the suggestions and comments while finalizing the paper.”
