Regulatory Alerts2025-09-15
Added
ACD Circular Letter No. 03: About CIB Reporting for Agricultural and Rural Credit
The document instructs all scheduled banks operating in Bangladesh to refrain from collecting Credit Information Bureau (CIB) reporting fees from customers for new agricultural and rural credit applications or renewals up to 250,000 BDT processed through the bank's own channels. This directive aims to ensure that borrowers are not deprived of the fee waiver benefit, as previous practices allowed banks to charge fees while seeking reimbursement from the central bank for only a small number of loans. The instruction is issued under Section 45 of the Bank Company Act, 1991, and takes immediate effect, while other existing instructions remain valid.
Phone: 88-02-9550448, 9554896, IP: 88-02-55665001-6, Fax: 88-02-9530479, Dobon: ACD Circular Letter No. 03
Bangladesh Bank (Central Bank of Bangladesh) Head Office Motijheel, Dhaka-1000 Bangladesh.
ACD Circular Letter No. 03 Date: -------------------
Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer All Scheduled Banks Operating in Bangladesh.
Dear Sir,
Regarding CIB Reporting and Investigation.
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Reference is drawn to your attention to ACD Circular Letter No. 01 of this department dated March 23, 2025, and Appendix No. 2.1.6 and 2.1.10 of the Agricultural and Rural Credit Policy and Procedure for the fiscal year 2025-26. Through CIB Circular Letter No. 02 issued by the Credit Information Bureau on May 5, 2025, in the context of the aforementioned ACD Circular Letter No. 01, an opportunity has been provided to waive the applicable service charge for the preparation of the CIB Report related to new credit applications or renewal of existing credits up to a maximum of 2.50 Lakh Taka in all sectors, including the crop sector covered under agricultural and rural credit. However, even though banks are collecting CIB charges from customers, they are applying to Bangladesh Bank for reimbursement of CIB charges only against a very small number of credits among the distributed agricultural and rural credits. Consequently, a large number of credit recipients are being deprived of the benefit of the said charge waiver. It is mentioned that Appendix No. 2.1.6 of the Agricultural and Rural Credit Policy states that, as a priority sector, banks shall not impose any other type of charge, processing/monitoring fee, etc. (however named) other than the interest fixed by banks to ensure customers' access to low-interest agricultural and rural credit.
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Now, with the objective of facilitating credit access, instructions are given to banks not to collect CIB charges from customers for the approval or renewal of agricultural and rural credits up to 2.50 Lakh through the bank's own channels (excluding Bank-CIB/CIU Linkage).
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Other instructions contained in the aforementioned Circular Letter and Policy issued by this department shall remain in force as usual.
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These instructions are issued under the powers conferred by Section 45 of the Bank Company Act, 1991.
These instructions shall be implemented immediately.
Yours faithfully,
(Debashish Sarkar) Director (ACD) Phone: 9530138 Agricultural Credit Department 50119 5 Bhadro 1432 15 September 2025