The Bangladesh Bank has firmly rejected waiver requests from three lenders—Sonali Bank, Islami Bank, and Standard Bank—upholding fines for violations in reporting classified loans to the Credit Information Bureau (CIB).
The penalties, each amounting to Tk5 lakh, were imposed for submitting incorrect loan classification data to the CIB and for not reporting defaulters on time. Bangladesh Bank's board made the decision at its 444th meeting on 6 October 2025, chaired by Governor Ahsan H. Mansur, rejecting the banks' requests for a waiver, a board official present at the meeting told The Business Standard.
THE CIB DATABASE
The Credit Information Bureau is Bangladesh Bank's database to which banks submit loan classification data.
Sonali Bank is state-owned. Islami Bank, a leading sharia-compliant lender, and Standard Bank, a private player, faced similar charges for discrepancies in their CIB submissions.
OTHER BOARD DECISIONS
At the same meeting, the board approved the Regulation for Bank Resolution, 2025, aligned with the Bank Resolution Ordinance, 2025, and approved the draft Distressed Asset Management Ordinance, 2025, for submission to the interim government's Advisory Council, BB spokesperson Arif Hossain Khan told TBS.
The board also approved the Shariah Advisory Board 2025 policy, under which each bank will have its own Shariah advisory board, with unresolved issues referred to Bangladesh Bank's central Shariah Advisory Board, and rejected an application by Premier Bank's former board, dissolved in August, to be reinstated.