The country’s banks have proposed charging customers fees on 14 new areas. The Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB), the banks’ organization, wants to impose fees even on services now provided free or without any charge, and has also proposed raising existing charges on various services. The ABB recently submitted a proposal on this to Bangladesh Bank. If it is approved, the banking costs of depositors, businesspeople, importers, exporters and borrowers will rise significantly.
The ABB proposal recommends imposing new fees on 14 services that currently carry no charge, and also proposes raising the existing charges on various services including account maintenance, loan processing, letters of credit (LC), bank guarantees, demand drafts, pay orders and solvency certificates.
Fees proposed on 14 areas. The proposal says no fee is currently charged to reactivate a dormant bank account; the ABB has proposed a fee of Tk 500 for this. For running loans, it seeks the option of a loan management or monitoring fee of up to 1 percent of the outstanding loan per year, up to a maximum of Tk 10,000. It also proposes a 1 percent fee for arranging buyer’s credit for importers, a 1 percent deal-structuring fee on large corporate loans and trade finance, and a further 1 percent as an additional risk premium beyond loan interest. A 2 percent commission on the sale of cash foreign currency has also been recommended.
There is currently no charge for withdrawing cash from a bank counter as often as one likes. Under the new proposal, up to three withdrawals a month would be free; the fourth to tenth would carry a fee of Tk 100 each and more than ten withdrawals Tk 300 each. There is also currently no limit or charge on cash withdrawals from business accounts; under the ABB proposal, up to 20 withdrawals a month would be free, the 21st to 50th would carry Tk 100 each and more than 50 Tk 150 each, raising businesses’ transaction costs.
In addition, fees of Tk 100 to accept an LC-opening application, up to US$20 to process a foreign LC’s documents and up to Tk 1,000 for a local LC have been proposed. Fees of up to Tk 1,000 for approving or attesting documents and Tk 500 to cancel an active LC have also been recommended. A balance confirmation certificate, now given free once a year and once every six months, would carry a Tk 300 fee under the new proposal. Where demand loans and continuous loans are currently repaid before maturity without any charge, the ABB has proposed an early-settlement fee of 1 percent of the remaining loan. Charges have also been sought for approving a customer’s file from Bangladesh Bank, with a maximum of Tk 1,500 proposed for retail customers and up to Tk 10,000 for corporate customers.
Existing charges proposed to rise. Along with the new fees, the ABB has proposed raising the rates of services that already carry a fee. At present, no account maintenance fee is charged where the average balance in a savings account is up to Tk 10,000; the ABB has proposed cutting this threshold to Tk 5,000, with a monthly fee of Tk 150 for average balances of Tk 5,000 to Tk 25,000 and Tk 300 for balances above Tk 25,000. The biggest proposed change is in loans: the loan processing fee, currently a maximum of 0.50 percent, is recommended to rise to a maximum of 2 percent, and the loan rescheduling or restructuring fee from the current 0.25 percent to a maximum of 1 percent, though CMSME and agricultural loans are recommended to be kept outside this limit. The charge for early loan repayment is also proposed to rise from 0.50 percent of the remaining loan to 2 percent.
In addition, the LC amendment fee is proposed to rise from a maximum of Tk 750 to Tk 1,500, the maximum bank guarantee commission from 0.50 percent to 0.75 percent and the minimum commission from Tk 1,000 to Tk 2,000. The solvency certificate fee is proposed to rise from Tk 200 to Tk 500, the check return fee from Tk 50 to Tk 100, the stop-payment fee from Tk 100 to Tk 150 and the pay-order issue fee from a maximum of Tk 300 to Tk 500, with a Tk 300 fee also proposed for a balance confirmation certificate.
In its letter to Bangladesh Bank, the ABB said the current charge structure needed to be reconsidered given the expanding scope of banking services, rising operating costs, the spread of technology-based services and the growing cost of maintaining customer service. It therefore asked that the proposed “schedule of charges” be approved as a maximum charge ceiling for all banks in the country.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report