Probashi Kallayan Bank off-track?

In deviation from its core spirit, the Probashi Kallayan Bank (PKB) is mostly concentrating on migration loan rather than on its focus on employment generation among oversees returnees, the bank’s own data showed.

The PKB from its inception in 2011 till date has disbursed only Tk 21 million among 135 returnee workers under its rehabilitation loan programme.

probashi BankOn the other hand, the bank has provided Tk 641 million as loan to 8,413 outbound workers under migration loan, reports the Financial Bank (FE).

High officials at PKB and some foreign returnees blamed the complicated formalities, lack of knowledge about the fund they are entitled to and shortage of manpower of the bank for receiving the loan.

After a visit to different branches of PKB, the FE found that   to receive a loan, a returnee worker has to comply with at least 10-point formality including land mortgage, guarantor and project proposal that in most of the cases the prospective loan receivers cannot fulfil either for lack of knowledge or lack of resources.

Md Mobarak Hosain, a returnee worker who tried to receive a rehabilitation loan from PKB, said he could not take even Tk 0.01 million from the bank though he fulfilled all the formalities of the bank excepting the mortgage related one.

“We have only 35 decimals of family property which I could not mortgage to the bank, so I failed to get the loan,” he added.

Abu Sufian, another foreign returnee said to complete all the formalities, he had to spend nearly Tk 10,000 but the bank has sanctioned him only Tk 0.01 million as loan against the demand for Tk 1.0 million which is very small to meet up minimum requirement of his business.

“I have applied for Tk 1.0 million loan to start a dairy farm and mortgaged 20 decimals of land the market value of which is more than Tk1.0 million, but the bank has sanctioned me only Tk 0.01 million showing reason of risk factor as I do not have any formal training on cattle rearing,” he added.

However, chief manager of PKB, Mohammed Abu Syed said they are struggling to make follow-up on the projects loans so far sanctioned by the bank which kept them at bay from further sanctioning of new loans.

“PKB is facing shortage of manpower for which most of our projects have failed and now we have become choosy in sanctioning new loans,” he added.

According to him, the bank has a total of 212 staff members to run 49 branches across the country, including the head office.

Managing Director of PKB, Md Mosharraf Hossain Chowdhury said the bank is now trying to find out ways and means to speed up sanctioning rehabilitation loans to comply with the spirit of formation of the bank.

“Most of the returnees stayed outside the country for long, for which they lack experience over business environment in Bangladesh. As a result, most of them fail to do a sustainable business,” he added.


Share: