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Individual depositors of Sammilito Islami Bank began receiving the principal amount of their deposits from Monday (September 7), following the merger of five troubled Islamic banks hit by irregularities and financial fraud.
The bank started accepting applications for deposit withdrawals on September 1 and continued to do so until September 6.
Applications submitted at individual branches and sub-branches were sent to the bank’s head office. Based on customers’ withdrawal requests, the required funds are then being sent to the respective branches, allowing customers to withdraw their money there.
The bank has already received Tk5,000 crore from Bangladesh Bank to facilitate the repayment of deposits.
Over the six-day application period, around 75,000 customers applied for withdrawals, with total claims amounting to Tk3,925 crore.
For now, only individual depositors are being allowed to withdraw their principal deposits. Any profit earned on the deposits will be paid at a later stage, according to the bank’s instructions.
Institutional depositors, however, are not currently allowed to withdraw funds outside the announced repayment scheme.
Although the repayment process was initially scheduled to begin on September 1, the distribution was delayed due to administrative formalities and officially started on Monday.
Sammilito Islami Bank was formed by merging Exim Bank, Social Islami Bank, First Security Islami Bank, Global Islami Bank and Union Bank to address a severe financial crisis. The five banks had been struggling to repay depositors since 2022.
Of the newly formed bank’s Tk30,000 crore capital, the government has provided Tk20,000 crore. The five banks had about 7.6 million depositors with total deposits of roughly Tk142,000 crore, including around Tk15,000 crore in individual savings accounts.
At the same time, about 86% of the banks’ total loans of Tk192,000 crore had turned non-performing, according to bank data.