A file photo shows Bangladesh Bank office in Dhaka. — New Age photo

Bangladesh Bank has started inspecting 26 commercial banks including four state-owned banks for scrutinising their profit, classified loan and its provision, and rescheduling of classified loans, said central bank officials.
The BB inspection will end late March of this year. The central bank will inspect the other banks in a second phase after first quarter of this year.
A senior BB official told New Age on Wednesday that the central bank had started the inspecting from January 15 in a bid to tackle the forgery case in the banking sector.
He said the BB usually inspected eight to 10 banks in a certain quarter but it had started scrutinising 26 banks for the first time due to an increasing trend of embezzlement in the banking sector.
BB inspection teams comprised by department of banking inspection one and two are conducting the scrutiny on the basis of the 26 banks’ financial conditions till December 31, 2012, he said.
He said the BB had selected the 26 banks as their financial conditions were lower than the other banks.
The 26 banks are — Sonali Bank, Janata Bank, Agrani Bank, Rupali Bank, BASIC Bank, Bangladesh Development Bank, Bangladesh Commerce Bank, AB Bank, Al-Arafah Islami Bank, The City Bank, Dutch-Bangla Bank, First Security Islami Bank, IFIC Bank, ICB Islamic Bank, Islami Bank Bangladesh, Jamuna Bank, Mutual Trust Bank, NCC Bank, Pubali Bank, Shahjalal Islami Bank, Social Islami Bank, Southeast Bank, ONE Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Citibank NA, and National Bank of Pakistan.
Another BB official said the central bank had selected the banks on the basis of their CAMELS (capital, asset, management, earning, liquidity and sensitivity) rating.
He said a number of banks had recently declared their operating profit for 2012 which was higher from that of 2011.
It has already been emerged a question that how the banks attained the robust operating profit despite a turmoil economic situation in 2012, he said.
The crises in the banking sector increased due to Hallmark Group-Sonali Bank scam and unrest situation in the capital market, he said.
The BB inspection teams will examine the banks whether they have earned the profit or not, the official said. 
The net profit of a significant number of banks may drastically decline as they have to implement the new BB guideline for loan classification, provisioning and rescheduling from the last quarter (October-December) of 2012, he said.
The BB will examine the assets quality of the banks in a bid to differentiate between the classified loan and the general loan.
Besides, the BB will also scrutiny the banks whether they are maintaining the provision against classified loans.
‘The BB will take stern punitive action against the bank which will be found not maintaining the central bank’s rules and regulation.’