Banking caught in cheque chaos

Star (October 26, 2010)

Enamul Haque deposited a Tk 6 lakh cheque to the Shyamoli branch of Southeast Bank on Wednesday. As it was another bank's cheque, it must be cleared at the central bank's clearinghouse. Also, the same day it was supposed to be credited, but it did not happen until Sunday. Consequently, Haque could not pay his client in time.

So were the experiences of hundreds of bank clients in the past three days. The culprit behind the dislocation is a technical glitch in the automated cheque clearinghouse of Bangladesh Bank.

Not only clients, banks have also gone through a huge pain.

“We have sent 1,200 cheques to the central bank clearinghouse on Sunday, but not a single one was settled. All the clients have suffered and we faced a lot of hassles,” said an official of Dutch-Bangla Bank's Motijheel branch. He said the first working day of the week is a busy time for the banks as the cheques of Thursday and a few of Saturday are processed on Sunday for settlement.

Many bankers said the central bank informed them of a problem with the server of its clearinghouse at 6pm on Sunday and instructed them to send cheques manually for settlement. As a result, many had to work through midnight.

The automated clearinghouse came to a halt -- three weeks into its launch -- due to technical faults. The system, formally introduced on October 7, is aimed at settling payments among 1,100 branches of all 47 scheduled banks in Dhaka, initially.

Bankers blamed the central bank's inadequacy in 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, turned down the allegation of poor management, saying that such a technical fault is nothing unusual.

“We faced a problem for the first time after we launched the service formally on October 7. We had no problem till October 24,” said Das Gupta Asim Kumar, BB's executive director.

The BB will take some measures to avert such problems in future, he said.

“We are thinking of deploying people round the clock in the server room,” said Asim Kumar. The situation could be avoided if a person was there at that night when the chilling system of the air conditioner was overheated and went out of order, he said.

The chilling system is under open sky. A shed will be built to guard the system on an emergency basis, the BB high official said.

Asim Kumar said the service of the clearinghouse resumed late yesterday.

He, however, admitted to the complaints from banks on a sloth in the clearinghouse's communication link.

“We are talking to the vender to get the problem fixed.”