Illegal income, fund siphoning rampant in S Asia
STAFF REPORTER
Terrorism financing, illegal sources of income and siphoning off of funds are the main challenges confronting the financial sector of the south Asian region, said Sanjib Subba, chief executive officer of the National Banking Institute (NBI) of Nepal. Were fighting the same problem in this region. We should emphasise personal instead of professional quality to combat the challenges, Subba said. We must give importance to personal values like integrity, along with professional qualifications, to face the challenges of the banking sector, he added.
He was speaking at the opening session of the two-day Regional Banking conference at the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM) auditorium at Mirpur in the city yesterday.
The conference was presided over by BIBM director-general Dr Toufic Ahmad Choudhury.
Bangladesh Bank (BB) governor Fazle Kabir, counsellor of Bhutan embassy in Dhaka, Domang, associate professor of Indias National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM) Ujit Patel and BIBM director Dr Shah Md. Ahsan Habib spoke at the conference. Around 230 professionals and academicians from India, Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh are taking part in the conference. The BIBM organised the event in association with Indias NIBM, Bhutans Financial Institutions Training Institute (FITI) and Nepals NBI.
Fazle Kabir observed that the business of banking industry is experiencing remarkable changes with the ongoing development in terms of faster customer services, efficient customer relationship management, increasing use of technology and innovation in the banking sector throughout the world.
The banking industry requires the collective efforts of academicians, researchers and practitioners to cope with the growing competition and challenges of global banking, he said. He also said he was confident that regional banking conference would facilitate in learning from each other and in identifying and tackling specific challenges.
Dr Ahmad Choudhury said the BIBM has organised the regional conference for the first time to bring together experts, academics and researchers from all over the world to share knowledge, experience and research on banking and related issues.
To cope with the growing changes, it is crucial for bankers and other stakeholders to have access to reliable information, he said. He also said the Bangladeshi financial sector largely comprises banks, with private banks dominating the market. He added that the banks here have been meeting the credit needsboth short-term and long-termof businesses and other drivers of economic activity in the absence of more specialised and sophisticated financial institutions.
