S Alam Group took more than half the loans of Islami Bank: Chairman Obayed

The S Alam Group has taken more than half of the total loans disbursed by the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited, the bank's newly appointed Chairman Obayed Ullah Al Masud said today (5 September).

Following a meeting between the bank's chairman and governor of Bangladesh Bank, Masud said it would take another week to get the complete information on the amount of the loans.

At the end of June, the bank's disbursed loans stood at more than Tk1.74 lakh crore.

Masud said S Alam had overvalued its assets and taken loans based on those.

"The assets are already being reassessed. Also, the collateral against the loans will not be enough to cover those. Therefore, a letter has been written to the law ministry to find out the assets which are outside the collaterals," he said. 

He said there was a deficit of Tk2,300cr when the new board took charge, but this had been reduced to Tk2,000cr. He hoped that it would return to a positive trend at the end of the year.

He also said customers won't face problems in withdrawing money after today as the amount deposited in the last week was more than what was withdrawn, resulting in a net balance.

Asked what kind of action was being taken against various officials who have cooperated with S Alam, he said, "We do not want to move against the lower-tier officials now. Because if you hit the bottom now, everything will collapse. Some on the top rungs are already being removed and all will be dealt with gradually. Action will be taken according to the law."

He said a roadmap has been drawn up to turn the bank around. The roadmap was done in three phases with the year 2025-26 considered as the turnaround year.