Top bankers criticise ‘fake news’ linking meeting with governor

The Association of Bankers Bangladesh (ABB), a forum of banks’ managing directors, dismissed ‘fake news’ stories about the layoffs in private banks during the coronavirus pandemic that began in March last year.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the ABB said there was no question of saying ‘sorry’ by six MDs to the governor of Bangladesh as published by some news media on Tuesday.

A team of ABB led by its chairman Ali Reza Iftekhar met Fazle Kabir, the BB governor, on Monday to explain the issue of laying off employees during the pandemic.

“Some media outlets published ‘baseless’ and ‘misleading’ reports on the meeting with the governor,” the ABB said, citing an example that one report said six MDs apologised to the governor for terminating employees. In fact, MDs of four banks – EBL, City, Mutual Trust and BRAC – attended the meeting, not six, the ABB said.

MDs of these four banks explained to the governor that some bankers resigned or were terminated because of their poor performance and disciplinary ground and many left for better opportunities in other banks, the ABB said.

Some employees resigned either for personal reasons or to settle abroad permanently, it said.

After a patient hearing, the governor told the MDs that the central bank would take its decision later as investigations are now on in some banks.

However, the governor asked banks to be ‘humane’ in laying off employees during the coronavirus pandemic and paying less to the entry level employees, the ABB said.

It said the meeting was held in a very cordial manner and no situation arose that MDs had to say ‘sorry’ to the governor. So, the ABB criticised the false and distorted news reports carried out by some media.

According to a Bangladesh Bank report, the above-mentioned four banks along with DBBL and Standard Bank laid off a total of 3,313 employees during the pandemic.

Some 3,070 of the laid off staff of those banks admitted to the central bank investigation team that they were forced to tender their resignation as they were not willing to do that.

The probe team also found that these six private banks showed on papers that over 3,000 of those employees had resigned willingly.

The highest number of layoffs happened in BRAC Bank with 1,260 employees, followed by City Bank (1,102), Dutch-Bangla Bank (448), Eastern Bank (201), Standard Bank (152) and Mutual Trust Bank (150).