Staff Reporter :
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) has tightened the rules of appointing bank directors as sets a minimum age for the post of bank director at 30 years with at least 10 years of business experience after turning 18 years old.
The central bank announced this in a circular on Sunday stepping in line with the Bank Company (Amendment) Act, 2023.
The age limit was introduced in a new guideline to ensure good governance the banking regulation in regard to the formation of the board of directors and responsibilities of directors of a bank company.
The guideline will come into effect immediately, said the circular.
Previously, there was no age limit for becoming a bank director. Taking advantage of this, some banks appointed directors who are as young as 22 years old, local media reported quoting sources.
According to the Bank Company (Amendment) Act, 2023, the directors must have at least 10 years of experience in either management or business or have professional experience.
The new guideline also instructed, a defaulter will not be eligible to be director of a bank within five years of coming out from default status.
Moreover, the number of directors of a bank will be a maximum of 20, and independent directors will be three.If there are less than 20 directors, there cannot be more than two independent directors.
At the same time not more than three members from a single family can be directors, the guideline said.
If employed in any position in the concerned bank-company, that person cannot become a director of the bank-company unless five years have passed since the termination of service.
Likewise, to be a director, one cannot be convicted of a criminal offense or has not been involved in any forgery, financial crime or other illegal activities, as per the central bank’s guideline on Sunday.
In order to become a director of a bank-company, one cannot be employed as a director or advisor or consultant or in any other profitable position in any other bank-company, financial institution, insurance company or any subsidiary company of such companies.
The circular also states that a director will get a maximum Tk 10,000 for per attendance in board meetings while an independent director will get monthly Tk50,000 honorarium along with attendance fee.
