Bank Asia Limited

Bank Asia Limited is a scheduled commercial bank in the private sector established under the Banking Company Act 1991 and incorporated in Bangladesh as a public limited company under the Companies Act of 1994 to carry out banking business in Bangladesh Bank.

The general administration and management of the bank are vested in an 18-member board of directors consisting of a chairman and 17 directors, including the managing director as the chief executive. On 31 December 2020, the bank had 129 urban branches and a total of 2463 employees. The 7 functional divisions at the bank's corporate head office in Dhaka are credit, central accounts, human resources, establishment, branch expansion and development, international, and public relations departments.

It set milestone by acquiring the business operations of the Bank of Nova Scotia in Dhaka, first in the banking history of Bangladesh. It again repeated the performance by acquiring the Bangladesh operations of Muslim Commercial Bank Ltd. (MCB), a Pakistani bank. In the year 2003 the Bank again came to the limelight with oversubscription of the Initial Public Offering of the shares of the Bank, which was a record (55 times) in our capital market's history and its shares commands respectable premium.


Table   Basic Facts and Economic Indicators (In Million Taka).

Indicators 2018 2019 2020
Authorized Capital 15000 15000 15000
Paid up Capital 11104 11659 11659
Reserved Fund 12236 13086 15722
Deposits 222472 253710 303028
a) Call Deposits 54910 55543 68881
b) Term Deposits 167562 198167 234147
Loans and Advance 214618 227299 244642
Investment 35999 54933 94251
Total Asset 307291 353800 408717
Total Income 27131 30536 28106
Total Expenditure 19070 21214 22035
Foreign Currency Trading 362049 370330 348749
a) Export 136733 132465 108549
b) Import 165203 158115 141289
c) Remittance 60113 79750 98911
Total Manpower 2256 2376 2463
a) Officers 2240 2361 2447
b) Staff 16 15 16
Correspondents Banks 698 677 670
Total Branches (in numbers) 127 128 129
a) Domestic 127 128 129
b) Overseas 0 0 0
Agriculture credIt
Loan Disbursed 2881 4309 5420
Realised 5519 4540 5392
Industrial Credit
Loan Disbursed 85464 68433 71622
Realsied 83561 64881 64157
Loan Outstanding by Sector
Agriculture and Fisheries and Forestry 2335 4187 5411
Industry 37401 47785 60964
Trade and Commerce 34361 36081 35601
Poverty Reduction 8 7 8
CSR 127 116 283


Source Government of Bangladesh, Ministry of Finance, Banking and Financial Institution Division, Barshik Protibedon [Annual Report on Banks and Financial Institutions], 2019-20 and 2020-21.

The asset and liability growth has been remarkable. Bank Asia has been actively participating in the local money market as well as foreign currency market without exposing the Bank to vulnerable positions. The Bank's investment in Treasury Bills and other securities went up noticeably opening up opportunities for enhancing income in the context of a regime of gradual interest rate decline. Bank Asia Limited started its service with a vision to serve people with modern and innovative banking products and services at affordable charge. Being parallel to the cutting-edge technology the Bank is offering online banking with added delivery channels like ATM, Tele-banking, SMS and Net Banking. And as part of the bank's commitment to provide all modern and value-added banking service in keeping with the very best standard in a globalize world.

In 2019, bank deposits accounted for 2.0 per cent of total banking sector deposits and loans and advances accounted for 2.1 per cent of total banking sector loans and advances. The average interest rate differential between June 2019 based deposits and loans and advances was 4.5 percent. [Muhammad Abdul Mazid]