’No more loan for Hall-Mark’

The state-owned Sonali Bank has decided to not sanction further loan to little-known Hall-Mark Group, which is at the heart of arguably Bangladesh’s biggest financial scam.

The position of the bank was clear in one of its draft proposal made on Monday after it received a letter from the Ministry of Finance that had asked whether the group was eligible to resume banking after clearing all the previous loans.

The draft said re-financing of the institution would increase repetition of such crimes in future and added such a ‘brittle’ institution lacked room for the reinvestment.

The board of directors of the largest government-run commercial bank met on Monday to finalise the draft.

The newly appointed Chairman of the loan scam-hit Sonali Bank, AHM Habibur Rahman, said the meeting was yet to come to a conclusion.

“The issue is very complicated. We will again meet,” he said, “Hall-Mark has already stolen away a huge property. We can’t give them any more loan to do so again.”

He said the bank would leave no stone unturned to recover the ‘stolen’ money

Finance Minister AMA Muhith on Mar 27 talked about resuming the Hall-Mark factory considering the workforce.

He drew flaks from several quarters as the group allegedly swindled more than Tk 25 billion from the Sonali Bank.

After the comment by Muhith, his ministry sent the letter to the bank to submit a report to it mentioning whether the group could resume its banking following rescheduling of all the previous loans.

Selina Ahmed, one of the directors of the bank, said, “We are investigating the mortgage submitted by the Hall-Mark”.

After the loan scam surfaced, the Chairman and Managing Director of the group were sent behind bars in cases filed by the Anti-Corruption Commission.