Former chairman of Bangladesh Krishi Bank Khondokar Ibrahim Khaled on Saturday said the stock market has failed to regain investors’ confidence as most of the recommendations of his committee that investigated the share market scam remained unimplemented. “We had recommended many reforms for the stock market like controlling omnibus accounts, punitive actions against culprits, but that are yet to be implemented,” he said. Khaled, head of the probe committee formed to investigate the share market scam in 2011, was speaking as a designated discussant at a seminar on ‘Bank, Stock Market and Economic Growth: Bangladesh Perspective’ at the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM) at Mirpur in the city. The seminar organised by BIBM with its director general Dr Toufic Ahmed Chowdhury in the chair, was addressed, among others, by its executive chairman Md Abul Quasem, Dhaka University Finance Department’s professor Dr Mahmood Osman Iman, Prime Bank’s deputy managing director Mohammad Yasin Ali and Janata Capital and Investment’s chief executive Jahangir Alam. BIBM professor Habibullah Bahar presented the keynote paper on the topic. Criticising Bangladesh Bank’s role in the stock market, Ibrahim Khaled, also a former deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank, said the central bank’s approval to banks to use their depositors’ money in the share market was one of the main reasons for the scam. “Nowhere in the world banks are allowed to use depositors’ money for investment in the share market. The central bank put a limit on its use, but of late,” he said adding that banks’ profits have gone down because of their losses in the stock market. He also mentioned the share market’s regulator — Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) – has completely failed to play its due role as the regulator. “Instead, some of its directors were active players in the names of their wives’ accounts.” Citing the example of Malaysia and Indonesia, Khaled said foreign investment and investment by banks should be limited within 10 percent in the stock market. In his keynote presentation, Habibullah Bahar said the stock market has no significant contribution to the GDP though bank finance has 43.99 percent. Mohammad Yasin Ali said many corporate business houses taking loan from banks have invested in the share market for which now banks face the trouble. Such corporate houses now take loans for their industry but invest in real estate business which now brace for a bubble, and may crash anytime. Jahangir Alam said the small and medium enterprises should be brought into the stock market for collecting their equity which may play a positive role to revive the stock market. – UNB
