National Bank wants to become strong by itself without merging with any bank. For this reason, the board of directors of the bank has decided not to merge with UCB.

This decision was taken yesterday (April 27) in the board meeting of the National Bank.

Regarding the decision of the board, an official of the National Bank said that due to the bad loans the bank is in trouble, emphasis is being placed on collecting these loans first. At the same time, initiatives are being taken to solve the problems of the bank through the prescribed action plan.

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He said, if we can do these things successfully on our own, then the bank will turn around and there will be no need to merge with any other bank. Therefore, the current board is trying to become strong with its own efforts.

Meanwhile, uncertainty has also arisen over the merger of the state-owned BASIC Bank in the face of the movement of officers and employees. As a result, there is uncertainty about the success of the central bank’s action on weak bank consolidation. The sector stakeholders feel that Bangladesh Bank has somehow stumbled in the decision to ‘force’ the banks to merge.

Many are withdrawing their deposits as panic spreads in the banking sector over the merger. To deal with the situation, on April 15, the central bank called the journalists on an urgent basis and said that for the time being, no merger application will be taken outside of the five banks.
Among the banks which have already been decided to merge, Padma will be merged with EXIM, Basic with City, National with UCB, Bangladesh Development Bank with Sonali and Rajshahi Krishi Unanya Bank with Bangladesh Krishi Bank. Although earlier the governor had said on various occasions that eight to 10 banks would be merged.

Sources related to Bangladesh Bank said that on April 9, it was informed that the troubled private National Bank is merging with the private sector United Commercial Bank PLC (UCB). On that day, Governor Abdur Rauf Talukder called a director and managing director of UCB Bank and held a meeting at Bangladesh Bank.

In the meeting, it was informed to take initiatives to merge the authorities of UCB. At that time, no one was present on behalf of National Bank in the meeting.

A day before that, on April 8, it was decided to merge the government-owned Basic Bank with the private City Bank. On that day, Governor Abdur Rauf Talukdar called the Chairman and MD of City Bank and informed about this decision.

No representative of Basic Bank was present in that meeting either. There was no representative of the bank in the meeting held regarding the merger of the National Bank. Those concerned said that the governor is taking these decisions alone.

Earlier, it was decided to merge the two government banks first. These are Bangladesh Development Bank (BDBL) and Rajshahi Agricultural Development Bank (RAKAB). BDBL is merging with Sonali Bank. And Rakab is joining with Bangladesh Agricultural Bank. Bangladesh Bank informs the concerned banks about the decision to merge.