BB receives 4530 complaints of banking forgery

Client complaints are increasing day by day in Bangladesh Bank (BB), the central bank of the country that has already received at least 4,530 complaints of irregularities and frauds of public sector and private banks and financial institutions.
 Although providing good services and better facilities to their clients are the preconditions of the banking services, most of the public, private and specialised banks are not doing so; rather they are accused of committing various default practices and allegations have been pouring in into the BB against them on a regular basis.
Among various complaints, the major one is withdrawal of money from one's account without any valid documents, so to say, signed cheques or any other documents. Surprising though, such fraudulent practices are occurring now that sometimes forced the clients even to go to the courts for lodging cases against the concerned banks. "It's a clear crime", said a responsible official related to the banking sector, who preferred not to be named.
But because of lapses and lacunas of laws and judicial systems there is no easy way to get quick remedy. The proverbial saying that 'justice delayed, justice denied' is very much true in case of such cases relating to bank money forgery. For this reason, many victims are reluctant to go for legal battle against corrupt practices of the bankers. Yet, piles of cases of fraud are pending before the courts for long time.
After failing to get justice against such a fraud case, one victim finally lodged a complaint with the BB's Financial Integrity and Customer Services Department (FICSD) seeking to curb frauds and forgery in the banking sector.
According to the latest statistics, the FISCD received such 4,530 complaints in 2014-15 fiscal year. State-owned Sonali Bank topped the list with 256 complaints against their branches. Privately operated BRAC bank was second with 175 complaints.
The others with many complaints were Rupali Bank, Agrani Bank, Islami Bank Bangladesh, Janata Bank, Bangladesh Kriishi Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Dutch-Bangla Bank and National Bank.
FICSD General Manager told the Daily Observer that all the complaints could be resolved.
A total of 4,296 complaints were received in 2012-13 fiscal and 2,941 of them (68.46 per cent) were resolved. During 2013-14 fiscal, 4,476 complaints were received and the Bangladesh Bank settled 4,091 (89.87 per cent) of them. During FY 2014-15l, 3,930 complaints were received and the Bangladesh Bank settled 3,091 (88.87 per cent) of them. During 2015-16 fiscal, 4,530 complaints were received and the Bangladesh Bank settled 4,091 (90.87 per cent) of them. Most complaints came over general banking, but some were received over cards, mobile banking and remittance and trade bills.
BB's Senior Officer has instructed the officials to take stern measures to prevent recurrence of such incidents. But it is ironical that despite identifying the offenders, very light actions like simple departmental penalty are being taken against them.