Bangladesh Bank (BB) has prepared a five- year strategic plan for the banking sector under which a holistic approach will be endeavoured from January next year to ensure efficient banking services. The plan has been prepared at a meeting over the weekend at Jamuna Resort, a tourist attraction on the bank of the mighty Jamuna river, which also overlooks the Bangabandhu Bridge.

Earlier, the central bank discussed the plan with all the banks and financial institutions, World Bank and International Monetary Fund and with leading chambers and trade bodies. The two-day meeting, which began in the river resort on Friday, reviewed the recommendations of all stakeholders in the banking sector to finalise the plan. BB Governor Dr Atiur Rahman presided over the meeting, joined by deputy governors, directors and other high officials of the central bank.

The long-term plan, first of its kind in the country, focuses on some major areas, including monetary policy, automation, skilled development, capacity building and credit policy. The country’s banking sector so far shows resilience to the impact of global financial downturn. But, the central bank has taken the five-year strategic plan as a contingency policy to make the banking sector stronger. “We have prepared a strategic plan to face future challenges and make the central bank more efficient in supporting and developing banking sector,” Atiur Rahman told BSS after the meeting that ended on Saturday afternoon.

He said the plan would boost the capacity and efficiency of the banking sector through consistently endeavoring automation programme, stable monetary policy, skilled development, capacity building and a prudent credit policy. In the past few years, the banking sector had been modernised to some extent, but the majority of bank branches were still running on a combination of old and modern systems, leaving the vast majority out of efficient banking services. The strategic plan will support banks to expand their automation programme to bring more people under institutional financial facilities with new and innovative products. “At the meeting, we have found that the central bank should continue its support to the agriculture sector and increase assistance to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) by two to three times of the present rate,” the central bank chief said.

The five-year plan will include the observations made at the meeting, he added. Atiur said the overall investment would get more attention in the plan, but the central bank would encourage more investment in the agriculture and SME sectors. “Human resources development will be another area of major development under the strategic plan,” he said. Atiur said the central bank would review the plan once a year to update it with new measures. A monitoring team of the central bank, however, will oversee the implementation process regularly and will have meetings every three or six months, he added. The governor will announce the plan at a press conference tomorrow (Sunday) at 12 noon at the central bank headquarters in the capital city.

-The Independent