National Bank’s Locked Counters Face a Mid-October Test

Dhaka - For months, money sitting in National Bank accounts has been easier to see on a statement than to take out. That is supposed to change from 15 October, when Bangladesh Bank has told the lender to reopen fuller services and let customers withdraw according to need, not according to what a branch happens to have in the till.

The timetable is tight. High-value depositors can start filing applications on 11 October. Four days later the bank is expected to run cheques, RTGS and NPSB transfers, and letters of credit again, and to keep cash at branches and ATMs. Chairman Melita Mehjabeen has said the network — 221 branches, 65 sub-branches and 53 booths — will be staffed for a normal day. Acting managing director Zahidul Haque says preparations are already under way so the restart does not stall on the first morning.

The order came from a Thursday meeting at the central bank. Governor Mostaqur Rahman called in Mehjabeen and Haque, with deputy governors Md Habibur Rahman, Md Kabir Ahmed, Md Sarwar Hossain and Md Anisur Rahman also present. The governor went through the liquidity picture and the practical question depositors have been asking: can they have their own money when they ask for it? He told the board to protect those depositors, keep operations orderly, and avoid another blow to public trust in the banking system.

Trust is the scarce asset. National Bank was the country's first private commercial bank and, at its peak, held more than Tk 40,000 crore in deposits. It has not posted a profit since 2022. Losses from 2022 to 2025 were close to Tk 9,000 crore. Unaudited figures for the first half of 2026 show a further loss of Tk 2,286 crore, or Tk 7.10 a share, against a loss of Tk 985 crore in the same half of 2025. About 56 percent of the loan book, roughly Tk 24,000 crore, is non-performing. The provision shortfall is near Tk 20,000 crore.

That hole is why a date on a calendar is not the same as cash in a drawer. A senior Bangladesh Bank official said the regulator is ready to put up about Tk 3,000 crore at the start so counters can open, and is prepared to stretch support toward Tk 10,000 crore if withdrawals run ahead of the bank's own funds. The money would be routed through other banks, with the central bank as guarantor. Spokesperson Arif Hossain Khan said the governor had summoned the chairman and managing director specifically to make need-based withdrawals possible, and that Bangladesh Bank would step in if the bank cannot meet the demand alone.

The court record helps explain the urgency. Four depositors went to the High Court last month asking for access to savings they could not freely draw. By early September the central bank had already extended about Tk 10,568 crore in liquidity support to National Bank, inside a wider Tk 84,945 crore package for weak lenders. Repeated support has not yet produced a normal bank.

Governance is part of the story Mehjabeen herself has acknowledged. She has linked the long disruption to irregularities and weak oversight. For years under the previous government the board sat under Sikder Group control, until Bangladesh Bank intervened in 2024. Interests tied to the Multimode, Hosaf and Armana groups now run the bank. The chairman argues that recent central bank measures have tightened governance and that senior management has been reshuffled. She also says customers have not fully walked away, and that some may bring money back once services look ordinary again from 15 October.

That is the bet. A supervised reopening can release trapped deposits and calm a queue. It cannot, by itself, shrink a bad-loan ratio above 50 percent or close a provision gap measured in tens of thousands of crore. If cash reaches the counters on the 15th and stays there, the date will matter. If it does not, the meeting at Bangladesh Bank will read as another instruction that the balance sheet could not carry.