Dhaka, Dec 30: Inter-bank clearance of cheques for about Tk 5,000 crore suffered unusual delay during the last three days because of a technical glitch in the Bangladesh Bank's automated clearinghouse. Commercial banks have been asked to have their low value (less than Tk 5 lakh) cheques cleared manually, leaving them in queues for three to four days for a work that usually that takes a day. The central bank, however, continues clearing high-value (more thank Tk 5 lakh) cheques in a day through its back-up server located at Mirpur.

A high official of Bangladesh Bank said the main server of the central bank’s clearance house remained inoperative for the last few days. “The technical problem emerged three days back. We kept the main server shut to avoid further glitch. Experts are working to bring it normal and we are hopeful that the server will resume its full operation by Monday next,” Fazlur Rahman, Deputy General Manager of Bangladesh Bank said. He said the central bank today cleared about Tk 1704 crore high value cheques online through the Mirpur server while low value cheques worth about Tk 800 crore were cleared manually. The bank cleared about Tk 2500 crore a day on an average of which one third cheques were of Tk 5 lakh or below.  “Many clients expressed their utter dissatisfaction over the delay. We are trying to settle all the cheques by working beyond banking hours,” Habibur Rahman, manager of a branch of Islami Bank said.

Naz Hossain, Head of Banking, Standard Chartered Bank, said since the master clearing house is facing problem ultimately customers have to face delay. Mian QC Chowdhury, Senior Vice President of the United Commercial Bank said their branch level transaction faced severe problems for the crisis. The central bank had launched the system in early October this year to settle payments online among 1,100 branches of all 47 scheduled banks initially in Dhaka.

At the same time, it kept the manual settlement system open as a 'stand-by' solution. The system experienced problem within three weeks of its introduction. Bankers blamed the central bank's inadequate back-up support for the debacle. They also pointed out that Bangladesh Bank adopted the new technology without sufficient technical know-how and manpower. The central bank, however, denied the allegation of poor management, saying that such a technical fault is nothing unusual.

Source: The Independent, Bangladesh/31st Dec 2010