Capital Market Refinance Scheme
Application time for loans likely to be extended
The supervision committee for the capital market refinance scheme of Tk 900 crore for the effected small investors is likely to extend the timeframe to apply for the loans as almost all the merchant banks and brokers refrained them from applying within the stipulated timeframe.
The Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday held a meeting with the top 10 merchant banks and top 10 brokers of the Dhaka and Chittagong Stock Exchanges to know the reasons behind their reluctant approach in applying for the loans.
BSEC commissioner Arif Khan presided over the meeting.
The members of brokers and merchant banks, who were present in the meeting, said that they had informed the capital market regulator about the problems they were facing in applying for the refinance loans.
A senior merchant banker said it was said by the regulator that the interest waiver for the affected small investors by the merchant bankers and stockbrokers would be treated as allowable expenses for giving taxes. But, the National Board of Revenue is yet to give any such directive in this regard, he said.
‘We have requested the BSEC to take immediate steps to get any instruction from the NBR in this respect’, he said.
He also said, ‘We have requested the BSEC to waive the condition which asked Credit Information Bureau report for all the sponsor-directors of merchant banks-brokers for loan approval.’
The BSEC executive director Saifur Rahman told New Age, ‘The representatives of merchant bankers and brokerage houses requested us to extend the timeframe so that they can apply for the refinance loans.’
Saifur, also the head of the supervision committee, said, ‘A meeting of the supervision committee will be called on Thursday (today) to make a decision in this respect.’
The supervision committee, as per the government guideline, had set November 30 as deadline to apply for the refinance loans.
Another senior official of DSE said that brokers and merchant bankers agreed to take all the responsibility of repaying the loans if the regulator allowed them to apply generally against all effected investors under their organisations.
The ICB, the refinance loan disbursement authorities, on September 3 had formed a six-member loan approval committee as per the government’s guideline for the disbursement of the refinance fund of Tk 900 crore through merchant banks and brokerage houses to the small-scale affected investors.
For sanctioning of a loan under the scheme the committee had set 18 conditions including clearance from Credit Information Bureau for all sponsor-directors of a merchant bank or a brokerage house.
Senior officials of merchant banks and brokerage houses had earlier said that tough conditions coupled with a lot of document requirements made it almost impossible for them to apply for loans under the scheme.
As per the BSEC report sent to the finance ministry in April this year, only 7,413 small-scale investors out of the 9,53,849 affected by the 2010-2011 stock market crash got interest waiver under the government-announced compensation package.
Bangladesh Bank on August 26 released Tk 300 crore as the first phase of the Tk 900-crore refinance scheme.
-With New Age input
