Bangladesh Bank Orders Action Against 13 Commerce Bank Officials

⚠ The central bank has ordered Bangladesh Commerce Bank to take the highest administrative action against 13 officials for allegedly receiving Tk 4 crore from the bank's funds in the name of incentives under a deposit mobilisation campaign. The directive, communicated through a letter to the managing director of the bank on August 25, also instructed the lender to take legal action over the irregular withdrawal of the money and recover the funds.

🏛 The central bank took the decision after a special inspection of Bangladesh Commerce Bank's head office and principal branch following allegations of misappropriation of Tk 5 crore belonging to depositors. The inspection findings, now formalised into regulatory action, expose the depth of governance breakdown at the state-affiliated lender and add to the catalogue of misconduct cases that Bangladesh Bank has been pursuing across the banking sector under its ongoing reform agenda.

Contacted, Arief Hossain Khan, executive director and spokesperson of Bangladesh Bank, told The Daily Star that there is no scope for providing any incentive for collecting deposits. "What happened at the bank was that it collected deposits at a lower rate but showed a higher rate and took the difference as a cash incentive," he said, adding that this is against the policy. The structural manipulation — paying depositors less than the advertised rate and pocketing the difference as "incentives" — represents a particularly insidious form of internal fraud that directly harms retail depositors.

📊 How The Tk 4 Crore Was Moved

According to the inspection report, Tk 4 crore was deposited into the personal accounts of 13 officials on June 4, 2026, as "incentives" for collecting deposits under the bank's "Ujjibon" deposit campaign. The payment was not approved by the bank's board of directors, the report said — a critical governance breach that bypassed standard internal controls and board oversight.

The 13 officials included eight from the head office, four from the principal branch and one from the bank's Dilkusha branch. The money was subsequently withdrawn in cash through 14 cheques over two days. Nine cheques were used to withdraw Tk 3.04 crore on June 4 this year, while five cheques were used to withdraw Tk 96 lakh on June 7, according to the inspection findings.

• 💰 Total misappropriated: Tk 4 crore (deposited to 13 personal accounts)
• 📅 Date of deposit: June 4, 2026
• 💵 Cash withdrawal: Tk 3.04 crore (9 cheques, June 4) + Tk 96 lakh (5 cheques, June 7)
• 🏛 8 officials from head office, 4 from principal branch, 1 from Dilkusha branch
• 🚫 Payment was not approved by the bank's board of directors
• 📜 Campaign name: "Ujjibon" deposit mobilisation scheme

The cash was withdrawn by Md Delwar Hossain, senior executive vice president and head of the treasury department of Bangladesh Commerce Bank, and Md Hamidur Rahman, senior principal officer and personal secretary to the managing director. The two officials reportedly left the principal branch with the cash in the bank's vehicle after each withdrawal — a detail that underscores the audacity of the operation and the misuse of bank infrastructure to facilitate the alleged fraud.

📜 Bangladesh Bank's Directive: Dismissal And Action

Bangladesh Bank has instructed the bank to dismiss Delwar Hossain and Hamidur Rahman. The directive is separate from any previous orders issued against them. The central bank has also ordered the bank to take the highest administrative action against the other 11 officials involved and inform it of the measures taken within a month — a tight deadline that signals the regulatory urgency of the case.

The other officials named in the action are First Assistant Vice President (FAVP) Yusuf Siddiq Ullah, AVP Saleh Ahmed, Officer Sarwar, FAVP Sujon Das, AVP Tasnuba Majumder, AVP Ahsan Habib, Principal Officer Adnan Ash Shafique, FAVP Monirul Haque, Senior Officer (SO) Rifat-ul Mursalin, Officer Saifur Rahman and SO Shahinur Rahman.

During the inspection, the officials were asked to explain the transactions in their accounts. Except for Saleh Ahmed, who was on leave due to illness, the officials told the inspection team that they had handed over their signed cheques to the marketing department on the advice of the bank's management, the BB report showed. The defence — that the transactions were orchestrated at the direction of senior management rather than initiated by the officials themselves — raises questions about the broader governance chain at Bangladesh Commerce Bank and whether additional senior officials beyond the 13 named so far were involved.

🏛 Bangladesh Commerce Bank's Governance Crisis

Bangladesh Commerce Bank, a private commercial bank with significant ownership stakes from state-affiliated entities, has been under regulatory scrutiny for several years. The bank's governance track record includes previous enforcement actions related to lending irregularities and weak internal controls. The Tk 4 crore deposit campaign scandal adds to a pattern of misconduct that has eroded depositor confidence and constrained the bank's ability to grow its balance sheet.

For Bangladesh Bank, the case represents the latest in a series of enforcement actions against banks that engaged in deposit mobilisation irregularities. The "Ujjibon" campaign scandal is structurally similar to cases uncovered at other mid-sized private banks where deposit incentive schemes were used as vehicles for self-dealing by management — a pattern the central bank has been targeting as part of its broader banking sector reform agenda.

🌏 Implications For Bangladesh's Banking Sector

The enforcement action comes at a critical moment for Bangladesh's banking sector. With total non-performing loans (NPLs) exceeding Tk 6 lakh crore at the end of June 2026 and the system-wide NPL ratio at 32.78%, the central bank has been under pressure to demonstrate that it can effectively police misconduct and hold senior officials accountable. The dismissal directive against Delwar Hossain and Hamidur Rahman — and the highest-administrative-action order against 11 other officials — sends a strong signal to the broader banking sector that internal fraud will be met with severe consequences.

For depositors, the case highlights an under-appreciated risk in Bangladesh's banking system: the manipulation of deposit rates by bank officials to extract illicit gains. While much of the public attention on banking sector misconduct has focused on large corporate defaults and related-party lending, the deposit campaign scandal exposes how retail depositors can be directly harmed by internal fraud — through lower effective interest rates on their savings than advertised.

The case also raises questions about the effectiveness of internal audit and compliance functions at Bangladesh Commerce Bank. The fact that Tk 4 crore could be moved through 14 cheques over two days, deposited into 13 personal accounts, and withdrawn in cash using the bank's own vehicle — all without triggering internal alerts — points to a systemic failure of internal controls that extends beyond the 13 named individuals.

🤝 What Comes Next

Bangladesh Commerce Bank now has one month to take administrative action against the 11 officials and report back to the central bank. The dismissal of Delwar Hossain and Hamidur Rahman must be implemented immediately. Beyond the administrative actions, the central bank's directive to take legal action means the case is likely to move into the criminal justice system — with potential charges including fraud, criminal breach of trust, and violation of the Bank Company Act.

For Bangladesh's broader financial sector, the case serves as a reminder that the central bank's reform agenda extends beyond the headline-grabbing issues of large corporate defaults and bank mergers. Effective policing of internal misconduct — including deposit rate manipulation, incentive fraud, and misuse of bank infrastructure — is a critical component of restoring depositor trust in a banking system that has been under sustained pressure for the past two years.