Private sector credit growth fell to a 39-month low in December as businesses went on a cautious mode thanks to the mounting uncertainty centring on the 11th general elections.

The central bank yesterday rolled out a new credit rating system to rein in spiralling bad loans.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the government of Bangladesh sign agreements for $200 million in loans to improve the rural road network in Bangladesh.

Iffat Jahan Dina landed a well-paying job in a private bank soon after obtaining her Masters degree from Rajshahi University. She dedicated herself to the job, which she found gratifying.

A court in the Philippines yesterday convicted a former branch manager at Manila-based Rizal Commercial Banking Corp (RCBC) of money laundering, in the first conviction over the Bangladesh Bank reserves heist in which $81 million was stolen nearly three years ago.

Bangladesh's non-performing loan situation is not as dire as is being reported in the news media, said Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal.

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim unexpectedly resigned on Monday, more than three years before his term ends in 2022, amid differences with the Trump administration over climate change and the need for more development resources.

Despite the huge loan rescheduling spree, the four state-owned banks saw poor cash recovery from their top defaulters in the first nine months of 2018.

Loan rescheduling soared about 30 percent to Tk 10,963 crore in the first nine months of 2018, fuelling further fears for the sector.

Janata Bank logged in losses of Tk 3,132 crore in the first nine months of 2018, a stunning reversal in fortune for the state-owned bank as loan irregularities finally take a toll.

Safiul Alam Khan Chowdhury has recently been reappointed additional managing director of Pubali Bank for three years.

Private banks reported hefty operating profit in the just concluded year, helped by the much higher interest rate on lending than that on deposits.

The banking sector's capital base strengthened in the third quarter of the year as state-run Sonali Bank got a shot in the arm from the central bank as it exercised its 'regulatory forbearance' right.

Farmers Bank is set to be renamed Padma Bank as the troubled bank looks to sweep the gross irregularities and loan scams under the carpet and get an image makeover.

The government's borrowing from the banking system shot up in the last two months to meet its expenditure ahead of the national election scheduled next week.

All banks will remain closed on the last four days of the year because of weekend, general holiday for election and bank holiday.

The central bank has agreed to sit with the Law Commission after top bankers called for steps to bail banks out of a huge backlog of court cases related to nonperforming loans.

Ashraful Haq Chowdhury has recently been elected as independent director of Bank Asia.

On January 29, 2015, the Bangladesh Bank issued a new large loan restructuring policy to stand by big borrowers in trouble.

New notes of Tk 2 and Tk 5 denominations will be released from Bangladesh Bank's Motijheel office today. The two new notes will carry