Abdar Rahman,
Project Director
We are delighted that the 2nd edition of Banking Almanac 2017 has been released with the support of Bangladesh Bank.
The need for a comprehensive compilation of details on all banks and financial institutions of Bangladesh has long been felt keeping this in mind the first edition of Banking Almanac was published in December 2016 with the financial support from Bangladesh Bank. The Almanac was the first of its type in the country. It is hoped that the information collated in this book will facilitate easy access to important details on banks and financial institutions in Bangladesh with greater transparency on them in the public domain. Banking Almanac is a research project of ShikkhaBichitra.
Our little initiative to publish the Banking Almanac has been successful with the assistance and encouragements of many scholars and distinguished personalities of this sector. The members of the board of editors are very much renowned in their respective professions. The Editorial Board Members are Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed, Chairman, Dr. Hossain Zillur Rahman, Md. Nazrul Huda, Mohammed Nurul Amin, Ambassador (rtd) Liaquat Ali Choudhury, Mohammad Amanullah, Professor Khair Jahan Sogra, Mominul Islam and A K M Aftabul Islam FCA. I am grateful to them.
Under the guidance of the esteemed editorial board members it has been possible to complete the work of publishing this Banking Almanac. My endless gratitude to all of them equally and especially I would like to express my sincere thanks and gratitude towards Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed, the former Governor of Bangladesh Bank, the most renowned personality nationally and internationally. His continuous guidance on overall improvement of quality of this book is truly acknowledged, and will be remembered for many years. A quote from the Honorable Chairman, Board of Editors, Dr. Salehuddin Ahmed, written in the ‘Forward’ of the 1 st edition of Banking Almanac can be mentioned here with gratitude : “The idea of a Banking Almanac initially came from Mr. Abdar Rahman of ShikkhaBichitra. He convinced others and assembled the member of the Editorial Board to help him.” This inspiration of my esteemed Sir is a great blessings for me.
Above all, without the assistance of Bangladesh Bank this book Banking Almanac 2017 (2nd edition) would not have been published. Valuing the project concept and proposal, Bangladesh Bank came forward and made a bilateral agreement with the Shikkhabichitra. This opportunity was created by Mr. Fazle Kabir, the honorable Governor of Bangladesh Bank and Mr. S K Sur Choudhury, former Deputy Governor. We are humbly grateful to them. We are also grateful to Mr. Manoj Kumar Biswas, General Manager, Sustainable Finance Department of Bangladesh Bank and his colleagues in the department for their valuable suggestion.
I would like to acknowledge the invaluable support from Power and Participation Research Center (PPRC), my indebted to its Executive Chairman, renowned Economist Dr. Hossain Zillur Rahman.
Further, in this 2nd edition we received a lot of response from dignitaries, like, Mr. Syed Mahbubur Rahman, Chairman of the Association of Bankers Bangladesh (ABB) and Mr. Khalilur Rahman, Chairman of Bangladesh Leasing and Finance Companies Association (BLFCA), who indebted us giving messages and valuable support.
1 duly acknowledges my heartfelt indebtedness to Mr. Syed Ziauddin Ahmed, Director PPRC and Executive Editor of Banking Almanac Project. Mr. Ahmed put his best efforts with utmost sincerity in coordinating editorial board meeting, research work, fund raising for publication of the Almanac, without which it would not be possible for me to smoothly accomplish the job.
It was very important to engage a specialist on subject matter as an editor to check back the manuscript critically. This difficult task has been done by Mr. Md. Amanullah, former Managing Director of Bangladesh
I express my gratitude to the other Executive Editor Mr. Mohammad Emdadul Haque, the renowned writer on liberation war and freedom fighter for his kind advice and helping me continuously to make this publication a success.
I would also like to acknowledge the support from Bangladesh Bank representatives of Project Implementation Committee: Mr. Md. Salah Uddin, Deputy General Manager and Ms. Rabeya Khandakar, Joint Director, Md Zakaria and Tarequr Rahman, Assistant Director of the Bank.
We hereby acknowledge the financial contribution of some of the commercial banks and financial institutions, besides the financial support from Bangladesh Bank to make this historic piece of work done.
I am thankful to the great teams for research support, publication and graphics and others who contributed to make the great work done in due time. I always received cooperation from the teams of Shikkhabichitra and ARDS, composed of groups of young and energetic professionals. My all best wishes to them.
This type of publication needs continuous improvement with updated data and information. So, there is no way of self-complacency, rather the noble journey has been initiated. There will be continuous improvement, no doubt.
It is needless to mention about the difficulty to receive financial support from the banks and financial institutions as per commitment. But we hope it will be easier to manage well in the next edition.
We have tried our best to make this publication error free, although we cannot say firmly that it is hundred percent done.
Along with the printed version there will be is online version of publication of this Banking Almanac so that the readers and users all over the world can have access to the book. This will help promote the capacity of banking sector of Bangladesh globally.
We believe that the Banking Almanac will play the key role in meeting up necessary information and data needs on banking sector of Bangladesh. The readers including the researchers, academicians, investors, professionals, policy makers, students and common people as a whole will be benefitted with this book. It will be used as quick reference, we believe.
We hope that as the second edition has been published with the support of Bangladesh Bank and some other banks and financial institutions, they will come forward to help publish the next edition also.
Therefore, we believe that continuous suggestions and encouragements of all concerned will enlighten the way to move forward the Banking Almanac and publish its next edition in future.
Abdar Rahman
Project Director
Developed by: E A STERN IT