2024-09-01 23:27:31
In the span of one year, Janata Bank’s defaulted loans have increased to more than 32 thousand crore rupees. As a percentage that is 220 percent. It has been reported that the bank’s defaulted loans have increased at an abnormal rate due to various loans given to various business groups.
According to Janata Bank’s own calculations, at the end of the last fiscal year 2022-2023, the defaulted loan status of the bank was Tk 13 thousand 950 crores. At the end of the last financial year 2023-2024, the defaulted loan status of the bank stood at 46 thousand crores. According to the bank, the default rate is now 30 percent. In banking parlance that can be considered very risky.
According to the Annual Performance Agreement (APA) executed with the Finance Ministry’s Financial Institutions Department, at the end of the last fiscal year, the target of limiting the defaulted loan status of Janata Bank to Tk 14,000 crore was set. But it was not possible for the bank.
In the last financial year 2023-2024, the status of non-performing loans of Janata Bank for each quarter can be seen in the figure, in the quarter of July-September 2023 it was Tk 22 thousand crores, in the quarter of October-December it was Tk 16 thousand 100 crores, in the quarter of January-March 2024 it was Tk 17 thousand 300 crores. Rs and at the end of the latest April-June quarter stood at Rs 46,000 crore. In other words, the amount of defaulted loans has increased tremendously in a span of just three months.
Against this huge amount of defaulted loans, Janata Bank has collected Tk 400 crore 62 lakhs in the financial year ended 2023-2024. Apart from this, according to the bank’s own calculations, at the end of the last fiscal year 2023-2024, the status of foreclosed loans stood at 3 thousand 219 crores 18 lakhs and collected 75 crores 16 lakhs from the foreclosed loans.
In this regard, in the APA of the current financial year 2024-2025, it has been asked to reduce the amount of defaulted loans of Janata Bank to Tk 26 thousand crores. And the target of recovery of defaulted loans has been set at 350 crores. Besides, the status of foreclosed loans has been limited to Tk 3,500 crores and a target of Tk 65 crores has been set to be collected from the foreclosed loans.
According to the board of directors of Janata Bank, it is not possible to keep the capital adequacy ratio (CRAR) at a standard level in accordance with ‘Basel-3’ due to the high amount of non-performing loans in the bank. Increase in defaulted loans; excessive concentration of credit; Slow speed in settling cases and unequal competition with private banks – these are some of the problems of the bank.
57 percent of Janata Bank’s total defaulted loans belong to seven major companies including Anontex, Crescent, Ratanpur and S Alam Group. Among the bank’s defaulted loans of Tk 25 thousand 8 crore, the default amount of these seven big companies is Tk 14 thousand 210 crore. Among them, Antex has Tk 7,708 crore, Crescent Group Tk 1,806 crore, Ratanpur Group Tk 1,227 crore, S Alam Group Tk 1,215 crore and Remex Footwear Tk 1,777 crore in default.
At the end of last June, the number of loss-making branches in Janata Bank stood at 45. Last March this number was 113. That is, in just three months, the number of accumulated loss-making branches has decreased by 68. Apart from this, Janata Bank is ahead against the APA target in settling writ cases. 49 against the target of disposal of 40 writ cases in the last financial year; Against the target of settling 170 money loan cases, 293 and 1 thousand 249 cases have been settled against the target of 1000 departmental and other cases.