Two shariah-based banks yesterday borrowed Tk 1,250 crore more under a Bangladesh Bank's arrangement named "Islamic Bank Liquidity Facility" (IBLF).
Md Mezbaul Haque, spokesperson of Bangladesh Bank, confirmed the information.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel.
The two banks are Islami Bank Bangladesh and Global Islami Bank.
The central bank on Tuesday injected Tk 4,000 crore into five banks after the introduction of the arrangement for the cash-strapped shariah-based banks.
The two banks also took funds from the central bank on Tuesday. Along with the two, three other shariah-based banks -- Social Islami Bank, First Security Islami Bank and Union Bank -- managed BB funds on the same day.
The boards of the five shariah-based banks are controlled by S Alam Group, a Chattogram-based conglomerate.
The BB on Monday announced that it would provide short-term loans for 14 days under the IBLF.
This is the first such initiative of the central bank, coinciding with a liquidity stress being faced by a number of shariah-based banks in Bangladesh stemming from deposit withdrawals amidst allegations of lending irregularities surfacing against the lenders.
The BB is now conducting a probe into Islami Bank Bangladesh that disbursed Tk 7,246 crore in loans among nine companies this year by allegedly violating banking rules.
Bangladesh has 10 shariah-based banks and, as of June 30 this year, they accounted for 26.19 per cent of the banking sector's total deposits.
The Islamic banking segment's deposits stood at Tk 412,341 crore as of June this year, 12 per cent higher from that in the same month of the previous year.
The share of lending, which Islamic banks term "investment", was 28.52 per cent of the total loans and advances of the whole banking sector at the end of June this year.
The total investment of Islamic banks stood at Tk 381,829 crore, which was 16.43 per cent higher year-on-year.
Disbursement of loans rose too in the April-June quarter from that in the previous quarter, according to the BB.
