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preparations to connect with the central bank's automated clearing
house, scheduled to go live from early November this year. The
instruction came at a review meeting of the chief executive officers
and managing directors of all commercial banks, held at the central
bank Tuesday, with Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Atiur Rahman in the
chair. Under the new system, payments will be settled using automated
cheque clearing system and electronic fund transfer among 1050 bank
branches in Dhaka initially, officials said. "The automated clearing
house will be established by November this year," BB governor told
reporters after the meeting, adding that the central bank has planed
to request Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for inauguration of the
country's first automated clearing house. The central bank earlier
extended the deadline for introduction of automated clearing house by
three months in consideration of requests from many banks, they added.
The Bangladesh Automated Clearing House (BACH) will be launched from
November 8 instead of August 3 this year, according to the revised
scheduled. The commercial banks have been asked to take necessary
preparations to issue MICR encoded checks in all regions and install
hardware and software and establish connectivity within this
timeframe, the BB said. "After implementation in Dhaka, the automated
process will spread to the regional clearing houses including
Bangladesh Bank offices in Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi, Bogra,
Sylhet, Barisal and Rangpur respectively," another BB official said.
The BACH, the automated payment system platform, has two components --
Bangladesh Automated Cheque Processing Systems (BACPS) and Bangladesh
Electronic Funds Transfer Network (BEFTN). The present payment and
settlement system in Bangladesh is not at par with the best
international practices, which emphasises the need for safe and
secured payment and settlement and the reduction of gap between
payment and settlement, according to the BB's annual report for the
fiscal 2007-08.
