Foreword for the Fifth Edition

Last year when we brought out the fourth edition of the Bangladesh Banking Almanac the national and international economic situations were worrisome and full of uncertainties. The economies in most countries were finding it difficult to overcome the adverse impacts of COVID-19. Widespread supply chain disruptions, balance of payment difficulties for most developing countries and rising prices of commodities, particularly of food grains following the outbreak of Ukraine War were having their toll. Most of these challenges largely remain and most of our countries continue to be beset with complex economic challenges. There is a realisation that we need, careful and effective policy formulation and their implementation to overcome them. It is now all too clear that our overall monetary and fiscal policies, will by necessity, must be pragmatic yet robust and carefully designed to address the key challenges that we face. In Bangladesh in particular, we are at a crossroad now when our mounting economic challenges arising out of sluggish demand for our exports, stagnating remittances from expatriate workers, rising borrowing costs, scarring of COVID-19 pandemic, political instabilities due to war in Ukraine and recent eruption of fresh violence in the Middle East are compounding our economic difficulties.

Such difficult times warrant difficult policy choices and well considered implementation measures. Our key institutions specially our financial institutions, themselves facing difficulties, will have a major role to play if we were to solve our present challenges. In carrying work on the present fifth edition of the Bangladesh Banking Almanac we tried to compile all the vital information and data on our Banking and financial institutions which we thought would be useful for those who would like to have most recent data and information to help their research, specific policy formulation and other operational aspects. We were also conscious how such data and information could be useful for fact based institutional strengthening efforts.

The fifth edition of the Almanac retains all the important features of its earlier editions. The users of the present edition of the Almanac will have access to carefully collected and compiled updated information on Bangladesh Bank and a wide range of recent government regulatory guidelines for the country's banking and financial institutions. Many of the recent credit and exchange rate policy guidelines of the Central Bank are also of great significance. Which are included in the relevant section of the Almanac. The Editorial Board of the Almanac has tried to include in a structured manner the details on the organizational details of our banks and financial institutions as well as their capital structure, loan disbursement, products offered to clients, spatial distribution of facilities offered which remain the core information and data of this Almanac.

Our thanks go to the Bangladesh Bank from which we received great assistance which helped our work on the Almanac in a significant way. We would also be remiss if we do not thank the Association of Bankers Bangladesh (ABB), the Bangladesh Leasing and Finance Companies Association (BLFCA), the Bangladesh Association of Banks (BAB) and the Power and Participation Research Centre (PPRC) for their support and constant encouragement without which it would have been difficult to continue our work on the present and past editions of this Almanac. We also owe a deep gratitude to the financial institutions assistance from which helped our work.

Personally, I am grateful to all the members of the Editorial Board who, with their constructive suggestions and valuable inputs, helped to enrich the presentation and contents of this edition of our Almanac. It is also my distinct pleasure to thank Mr. Abdar Rahman of ShikkhaBichitra and members of his dedicated team of researchers who collected and compiled the data and information for the Almanac in a most professional manner. These were often time consuming and demanding tasks which they accomplished with great care and commitment. Last but not the least the banks and financial institutions themselves deserve our heartfelt thanks for readily and timely sharing with us the information and data which we needed to prepare the present edition of our Almanac.

We express our thanks and gratitude to the Chairman of the Export Import Bank of Bangladesh Limited for providing us with a substantial amount of fund for publication of the Almanac.

We shall consider our work on this edition of our Almanac worthwhile, if all its intended users from the myriad areas of its relevance find it useful.