SDAD Circular Letter No. 01: Temporary Intermission of Banking Operations of Al-Arafah Islami Bank PLC for Core Banking System Upgradation

The Central Bank of Bangladesh approves the temporary suspension of Al-Arafah Islami Bank PLC's banking services to facilitate Core Banking System (CBS) upgradation. The suspension schedule mandates that all online banking services remain closed from January 30, 2026, at 12:01 AM to February 7, 2026, at 11:59 PM, and branch-based services including cash transactions remain closed from February 1, 2026, to February 3, 2026. Limited branch services and cash transactions are permitted on February 5, 2026, from 10:00 AM, with all services resuming regular operations on February 8, 2026. This approval is granted under the powers vested in Section 45 of the Bank Company Act, 1991.

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Bank of Bangladesh
(Central Bank of Bangladesh)
Head Office
Motijheel, Dhaka-1000
Bangladesh
Ref. No. CBBD/SDAD/Circular-01/2025-26/101

Supervisory Data Management and
Analytics Department (SDAD)
SDAD Circular Letter No.-01
08 Magh 1432
Date: ------------------
22 January 2026

Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer
All Scheduled Banks operating in Bangladesh

Dear Sir,

Regarding the notification of temporary suspension of banking services of Al-Arafah Islami Bank PLC for the purpose of Core Banking System (CBS) upgradation and approval of downtime.

Consent is hereby given regarding the downtime and reactivation of servers of Al-Arafah Islami Bank PLC according to the following schedule for the purpose of Core Banking System (CBS) upgradation:

S.No.	Date and Time	Services
1	From 12:01 AM on 30/01/2026 to 11:59 PM on 07/02/2026	All online banking services including ABA, ACH, etc. will remain closed.
2	From 01/02/2026 to 03/02/2026	Other branch-based banking services including cash transactions will remain closed.
3	05/02/2026	From 10:00 AM, only cash transactions and limited branch-based banking services will remain open.
4	From 08/02/2026	All types of services will resume regularly.

This consent is given under the powers vested in Section 45 of the Bank Company Act, 1991.

Yours faithfully,

(Md. Abdul Mannan)
Director (SDAD)
Phone: 9530093

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Lineage: In force

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Source: Bangladesh Bank — original document · Summary generated with machine assistance and reviewed before publication; the authoritative text is the regulator's original document. How RegAlert works