Merchant bankers have sought financial help from the government to pay compensations to the retailers affected in the last year’s stock market debacle. They demanded credit worth Tk 9.0 billion at 10 per cent interest from the central bank to implement the compensation package.
“We need loan to implement the package,” said MA Hafiz, president of Bangladesh Merchant Bankers Association (BMBA) at a press conference in a city hotel Tuesday.
“We have to pay loan borrowed from the banks along with waving interest of the margin loan given to the share investors, pushing us to a critical condition,” he said.
As per compensation package, merchant bankers have to waive Tk 914 crore against some 41,992 affected investors. Of the amount, Tk 65.16 crore will have to be rescheduled.
Under the present situation, it has become very difficult to implement the package, said BMBA vice president Tanjil Chowdhury.
On July 10, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has asked all the merchant banks, brokerage firms and other related institutions to give compensation to the small investors affected in the last year’s stock market debacle.
Some 209 brokerage firms under DSE, 79 under CSE and 28 merchant banks had been asked to take immediate steps regarding compensation.
The commission approved a set of recommendations forwarded by the scheme committee assigned to implement the package.
As per the compensation package, the retailers who had investment of below Tk 10 lakh at the crash time will get a waiver of up to 50 per cent of the interest on margin loans.
The adversely affected investors will have the scope to pay the remaining interest payment through quarterly installments in three years.
The affected people are also entitled to a 20 per cent quota in all initial public offerings — public and private – which was supposed to be effective from July, 2012 to June, 2014.
The government in October last year announced a stimulus package for stock market investors to restore stability in the market.
As part of the package, the government formed a seven-member special scheme committee on November 27 to identify small investors who incurred losses, and the amount they lost.
-With The Independent input
