Rejoinder, our reply
Social Islami Bank Ltd (SIBL) has sent a rejoinder to a July 17 report of The Daily Star with the headline “Record loan rescheduling at Social Islami Bank”.
Following is the full text of the rejoinder signed by the bank’s Additional Managing Director Kazi Towhidul Alam:
As per the report, Tk 2,950 crore has been rescheduled by SIBL during the period January-March 2019 and the percentage of our classified investment is 11.70 percent as on March 31, 2019.
This information is not correct.
The rescheduled amount mentioned in the report is much higher than our total classified investment amount as on December 31, 2018. It is obvious to all that the rescheduled amount cannot be higher than the classified investment amount. We strongly protest that the information mentioned in the report is not authentic and this will mislead stakeholders.
You are well aware that SIBL is a prestigious financial institution in the country. This type of derogatory report is utterly unfortunate for us and this will convey to the people a negative scenario of the whole banking industry.
Our Reply
The Daily Star ran the report based on the latest central bank figures on loan rescheduling, which is of the first quarter of 2019. Our report did not mention that the default loans at the bank stood at 11.70 percent as of March 31. What it said was: in the first three months of the year its default loans soared 11.70 percent to Tk 1,559 crore. So, we stand by our report.
