Bangladesh Bank housing refinance scheme, a popular housing project, is going to get Tk 200 crore in fresh fund, as its entire amount of Tk 500 crore has almost exhausted.
   ‘It’s a good project. We’re going to inject Tk 200 crore into the project … it’ll continue,’ Bangladesh Bank governor Atiur Rahman told the agency.
   The fresh fund is being pumped into the project amid increasing demand for the housing loan by the middle class. The central bank launched the refinancing scheme initially with Tk 300 crore for housing loan in fiscal 2007-08. Later, the fund was increased to Tk 500 crore.
   Under the refinancing scheme, borrowers are entitled to receive loan up to Tk 20 lakh at 9 per cent interest for a period of 20 years.
   ‘This is a wonderful project for the low-income group people to have homes of their own,’ said a Bangladesh Bank official preferring anonymity.
   He said BBHRS has had a tremendous response from the middle-class people as they want to have small-size affordable homes.
   Out of the total Tk 500 crore allocated by the government for the BBHRS, the central bank refinanced fund to the tune of Tk 350 crore till July last at an interest of 5 per cent to the financial and banking institutions, according to official sources.
   The entire amount of Tk 500 crore has exhausted as the financial and banking institutions are taking about Tk 45 crore to Tk 50 crore a month to disburse loan to buyers of flats of maximum size of 1250 sq ft.
   A senior official of a financial institution said the Bangladesh Bank should continue the scheme with bigger fund of at least Tk 1000 crore as it has multiplier effects on the economy through backward and forward linkage industries to the real estate sector like cement, iron and steel, bricks, electrical equipment, tiles, fittings, ceramic and manufacturing industries.
   ‘The growth of middle-class housing has increased significantly due to the availability of BBHRS fund at a reasonable cost,’ he said.
   ‘The demand for home loan is increasing each year and is currently about Tk 1500 crore, which shows an increase of over 20 per cent each year.’

HSBC Bangladesh has been voted the ‘Best Domestic Cash Management Bank’ in the Eurornoney Cash Management Poll 2009.
   Also in the same poll, the bank has been voted Best Cash Management Bank in Asia, said a press release.
   Now in its 9th year, the poll recognises the leading cash management banks in the industry. Cash managers, treasurers and financial officers worldwide were asked to indicate which international banks they currently use most for their cash management services globally, regionally and domestically.
   They were also asked to rate the services provided by their lead cash management bank across various categories on a sliding scale.
   As one of the strongest cash management banks in Asia, HSBC has pioneered a consultative approach to cash management, ensuring a more collaborative process in which customer needs are the main focus in delivering tailor made cash management solutions.
   Ahmed Saiful Islam, head of global payments and cash management, HSBC Bangladesh said, ‘This award showcases the leading role played by us in providing customised, efficient and technology-driven solutions to HSBC’s cash management clients in Bangladesh.’
   In addition to winning the crown for the overall ‘Best Cash Management Bank’ across the region, the bank also scored high results domestically across 11 other markets and was voted ‘number 1’ in Australia, Brunei, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Taiwan for in-country cash management services.

India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki reported Saturday that its quarterly profit had soared 93 per cent, against the backdrop of a reviving domestic economy.
   Maruti, majority owned by Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corp, reported net profit of 5.7 billion rupees (123 million dollars) in the second financial quarter to September 30. Net sales jumped 47 per cent to 70.5 billion rupees.
   The car manufacturer attributed the rise to government stimulus measures aimed at reviving a slowing economy that have put more money in the hands of India’s increasingly affluent middle class consumers.
   ‘Demand has been driven by government stimulus,’ the company said in a statement.
   It also attributed the rise in sales to aggressive monetary easing by India’s central bank that has made consumer loan costs cheaper.

Social Islami Bank, a private commercial bank, recently joined ELDORADO – an automated remittance and payment system led by BRAC Bank – through signing an agreement with BRAC Bank.
   AEA Muhaimen, the managing director of BRAC Bank, and KM Ashaduzzaman, the managing director of Social Islami Bank signed the agreement at a ceremony in Dhaka.
   Among others, senior officials of both the banks were present on the occasion.

SAA Masrur recently joined Bank Alfalah Limited-Bangladesh Operations as country head.
   Prior to joining the bank, he was the group head origination and client coverage (corporate banking) of Islamic banking in Standard Chartered Bank, Dubai, said a news release.
   Masrur with a master in Business Administration from University of Tennessee in
   USA started his career in 1985 as management trainee officer at the erstwhile ANZ Gringlays Bank.
   He has over 24 years of experience with top
   multinational banks including SCB and Citibank NA, performing local and foreign assignments as head of corporate banking, head of client relationship, and director portfolio management.

The cascade of bank failures this year surpassed 100 on Friday, the most in nearly two decades. And the trouble in the banking system from bad loans and the recession goes even deeper than the number suggests.
   Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other banks remain open even though they are as weak as many that have been shuttered. Regulators are seizing banks slowly and selectively — partly to avoid inciting panic and partly because buyers for bad banks are hard to find.
   Going slow buys time. An economic recovery could save some banks that would otherwise go under. But if the recovery is slow and smaller banks’ finances get even worse, it could wind up costing even more.
   The bank failures, 106 in all, are the most in any year since 181 collapsed in 1992, at the end of the savings-and-loan crisis. On Friday, regulators took over three small Florida banks — Partners Bank and Hillcrest Bank Florida, both of Naples, and Flagship National Bank in Bradenton — along with American United Bank of Lawrenceville, Ga., Bank of Elmwood in Racine, Wis., Riverview Community Bank in Otsego, Minn., and First Dupage Bank in Westmont, Ill.
   When a bank fails, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. swoops in, usually on a Friday afternoon. It tries to sell off the bank’s assets to buyers and cover its liabilities, primarily customer deposits. It taps the insurance fund to cover the rest.
   Bank failures have cost the FDIC’s fund that insures deposits an estimated $25 billion this year and are expected to cost $100 billion through 2013. To replenish the fund, the agency wants banks to pay in advance $45 billion in premiums that would have been due over the next three years.
   The FDIC won’t say how deep a hole its deposit insurance fund is in. It can tap a credit line from the Treasury of up to a half-trillion dollars to cover the gap.
   The list of banks in trouble is getting longer. At the end of June, the FDIC had flagged 416 as being at risk of failure, up from 305 at the end of March and 252 at the beginning of the year.
   Yet the pace of actual bank failures appears to be slowing. The FDIC seized 24 banks in July, 11 in September and 11 in October.
   If any bank poses an immediate danger to customers or the broader financial system, regulators close it immediately, bank supervisors said. The issue is murkier for troubled banks that might qualify to close but whose closings might still be postponed or even prevented.
   The FDIC’s first priority, spokesman Andrew Gray said, is to maintain public confidence in the banking system. ‘As evidenced by the stability of insured deposits throughout last year, this mission has been a success,’ he said.
   He said public confidence isn’t reason enough to delay a bank closing, because legally the decision to close rests with whoever chartered the bank — a state or federal agency.
   But more than a dozen experts, including current and former regulators, bankers and lawyers, say the FDIC’s mission to maintain public confidence in the banking system contributes to the go-slow approach.
    ‘The FDIC was set up to create confidence and prevent bank runs,’ says Mark Williams, a former bank examiner for the Federal Reserve. Being too aggressive about bank closings ‘can be counter to the mission.’
   Sarah Bloom Raskin, Maryland’s top banking regulator, said: ‘Technically it’s the states who decide, but in reality it’s the FDIC calling you to say’ when the bank will be closed.
   Last fall, the financial turmoil was rooted in bad bets that the nation’s biggest banks, like Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp., had made on complicated, high-risk mortgage investments.

Japan’s major nuclear reactor manufacturers have begun developing small nuclear power systems for both developed and emerging countries, a report said on Saturday.
   Toshiba Corp. is developing an ultra-compact reactor with an output of about 10,000 kilowatts and has started procedures for approval in the United States, the Nikkei business daily said.
   The new reactor, the Toshiba 4S, is designed to minimise the need for monitoring and maintenance, with an automatic shutdown function to ensure safety in case of problems, the newspaper said.
   Toshiba plans to market the reactor first in the United States, while foreseeing demand from emerging countries in Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe as well as in Africa, it said.
   Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. has separately completed the concept design for a pressurised-water reactor with a power output of around 350,000 kilowatts, the Nikkei said.
   Hitachi Ltd. also aims to develop a boiling-water reactor with a capacity of 400,000-600,000 kilowatts for use in Southeast Asia and other countries, it said.
   Demand for nuclear power stations has been growing around the world. A total of 151 were under construction or slated for construction in 27 countries as of the end of 2008, it said.

Consumers may be shopping for computers again, but Microsoft Corp. still needs businesses to start doing the same.
   Microsoft said Friday its revenue kept falling and its net income dropped 18 per cent in the last quarter, partly because of the hesitation of businesses, which are more profitable for Microsoft than consumers are.
   Big cost cuts at Microsoft made a difference, though, helping the company deliver earnings well above analysts’ expectations. Its stock surged $1.29, nearly 5 per cent, to $27.88 in afternoon trading. Earlier in the day, the stock reached a 52-week high of $29.35.
   But while the quarterly results looked good to Wall Street, they also showed how much Microsoft is still wrestling with a PC industry that remains much weaker than a year ago. In the past year the software maker resorted to its first wide-scale layoffs, and in July it said its annual revenue had fallen for the first time since the company went public in 1986.
   After skidding for six months, computer shipments rose in the July-September period. But shoppers tended to buy inexpensive laptops and even smaller, cheaper netbooks, which have older and less profitable versions of Windows installed. Many consumers also passed on buying Microsoft’s Office, the package that includes Word, Excel and Outlook, which contributed to a 14 per cent total decline in revenue in the quarter.
   Businesses watched their spending even more closely. That dragged down Windows results because business-level versions of the operating system are more expensive. And companies that have cut workers are ordering fewer copies of Office and other Microsoft software commonly used at work. Revenue and profit in the group that makes Office sank even as businesses spent more on newer software such as Sharepoint.
   Chris Liddell, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, said in a conference call that businesses could start replacing aging PCs and servers starting in 2010, ‘although it could be gradual and occur over a couple of years.’
   Other companies, especially Intel Corp., have indicated they expect things to improve faster, in the current quarter.
   Microsoft’s earnings in the last quarter dropped to $3.6 billion, or 40 cents per share, though that was much higher than the analysts’ estimate of 32 cents per share in a Thomson Reuters survey. In the same period last year Microsoft earned $4.4 billion, or 48 cents per share.
   Microsoft’s bottom line was hurt by a summer program in which the company let people buy a PC with the Windows Vista operating system and later install Windows 7 on the machine for free. That meant Microsoft counted only half of its Windows sales in the period and will report the rest as customers upgrade to Windows 7, which was released this week, through January, when the offer expires.
   If it had counted its deferred Windows revenue, Microsoft’s earnings would have increased 8 per cent from last year.
   Revenue sank to $12.9 billion, though if Microsoft had counted all the Windows sales, it would have posted a smaller 4 per cent drop in revenue, to $14.4 billion.
   A big reason that Microsoft’s earnings would have increased, if not for the Windows deferrals, despite lower revenue is that layoffs and other expense cuts are paying off. Microsoft employs 4 per cent fewer people than a year ago and has spent less on marketing and outside contractors, pushing operating expenses down more than $600 million compared with a year ago.
   Microsoft said expenses in the current fiscal year, which ends in June, could be as much as $400 million lower than previously expected.
   The company also lifted its earnings per share by resuming purchases of its own stock after a six-month pause, spending $1.45 billion in the quarter.

Hong Kong’s government has announced measures aimed at cooling the property market as low interest rates have spurred a dramatic surge in prices and fears of a possible bubble.
   The Hong Kong Monetary Authority said it had sent a circular to banks on Friday telling them to cut the amount they lend to buyers of luxury homes with immediate effect.
   Loans on properties valued at 20 million dollars (2.6 million US) or more would be capped at 60 per cent, down from 70 per cent. For cheaper properties the maximum loan would remain 70 per cent but would be capped at 12 million dollars.
   The HKMA, Hong Kong’s de facto central bank, also reminded banks to exercise prudence when valuing properties and calculating borrowers’ ability to repay loans.
    ‘These are prudential measures designed in the interest of maintaining banking stability, to enhance banks’ risk management on mortgage lending to high-end residential properties,’ HKMA chief executive Norman Chan said in a statement.
   Record-low interest rates have helped drive up prices by 41 per cent in the luxury property sector while the mass-market segment has risen more than 27 per cent, according to property agencies and consultants cited by the South China Morning Post.
   The government-owned Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation meanwhile announced that from Saturday it would stop offering insurance to property investors and reduce its maximum mortgage size from eight million to six million and from 20 million to 12 million under its mortgage insurance schemes.

Chain superstore Agora celebrated its 8th anniversary through different programmes in the Dhaka city on Saturday.
   Rahiamafrooz Group chairman Afrooz Rahim, and Firoz Rahim, the group’s managing director and chairman of Rahimafrooz Superstores Limited, operating company of Agora, inaugurated the anniversary celebration programme at the superstore’s Rifle Square outlet in Dhaka, said a news release.
   Agora chief executive officer Ranjan De Silva, head of operations Shams Haider, and head of accounts and finance Harunur Rashid, among others, were present on the occasion. Suppliers and customers of Agora were also present in the ceremony.
   The Gulshan, Moghbazar and Mirpur outlets of Agora were decorated colourfully on the occasion.
   Agora started its journey on August 24 in 2001. Starting with ten thousand products Agora has now more than twenty thousand products.

Mutual Trust Bank Limited on Saturday celebrated its 10th founding anniversary through voluntary blood donation programmes in Dhaka and Chittagong.
   The bank officials from various branches and offices across the country participated in the program. The collected blood would be dedicated to save lives of severely ill patients.
   To mark its 10th founding anniversary, the bank has drawn up elaborate programmes including various corporate social responsibility activities to be held over one year starting from October 24, 2009 till October 23, 2010.
   Mutual Bank started its journey on October 24, 1999 under the initiative of leading and highly reputable business personalities of the country.

Building Technology and Ideas Ltd organised a day-long ‘Apartment Fair’ at Uttara in Dhaka on Friday as part of its promotional campaign.
   The fair was a part of the company’s promotional activities and the company will arrange such programme at different areas of the Dhaka and Chittagong cities, said a new release.
   The company distributed leaflets, displayed banners and festoons, and arranged personal counselling for seven days before the start of the fair to create awareness among people. The company kept an offer of ‘mega price discount’ for the customer for spot booking at the fair.
   BTI has about 25 years of experience in real estate sector.