Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Dr Atiur Rahman asked banks to reduce their lending rates in accordance with their interest rates on deposits, reports BSS.
The governor was addressing the bankers' meeting at his office on Thursday.
"Banks cut the deposit rates, but did not reduce their lending rates accordingly," the governor said, pointing out that at least 13 banks were still charging 14.0 percent interest on credit while five banks did not bring down their interest rate against agriculture loan to 11.0 percent as per the central bank's earlier directive.
"This is not expected at all," Dr Rahman said and directed all banks to bring down their lending rates so the spread (difference between lending rate and deposit rate) comes down close to 4.0 percent.
He, however, said that the average lending rate came down to 12.32 percent in January and the spread at 5.04 percent in March as many banks reduced their lending rates following the similar directive of BB at the last bankers' meeting.
The governor also warned the banks against doing aggressive business by lending without proper risk analysis and putting pressure on their staff to fulfill a certain target.
He said there were also allegations of terminating staff from different banks without showing any reason, and forcing officers and employees including the female staff to stay at banks after normal working hours.
"This is against the humanitarian banking services," the governor said, suggesting that a good working atmosphere and healthy working and business practices should be ensured for providing people with better banking services.
He said the banks concerned should stop harassing their employees otherwise they would face stern punitive action.
Dr Rahman also suggested banks to be careful about rescheduling loans so that none of their bad clients get the benefit of any incentive declared by the central bank to help business recover their losses during unusual circumstances.
