Haque Specialized Group's News

Bangladesh Bank (BB) has started discussions with commercial banks to find the ways of increasing remittance inflow against the backdrop of its falling trend in recent months. "According to the government decision, BB today held a meeting with senior officials of top 20 remittance-recipient banks to awake of receding remittance inflows," said BB's chief spokesperson Subhankar Saha on Wednesday. Saha, also executive director of the central bank, said the government has already moved to bring the remittance inflow in upward trend through finding out its reasons, according to BSS.  ....

Published at: 2017-07-20 00:00:09

Mahnoor Fairuza Khan Bangladesh University of Professionals Business and Communications Club (BUP BCC) has recently launched this year's biggest inter university business strategy competition ‘SKS Presents Corporiddlerz 2017’, SKS indicating Sena Kalyan Sangstha. After last year's success, BUP BCC is aiming to give their venture even a bigger and better platform this year, according to a press release. Corporiddlerz has been an in-house flagship event of BUP BCC for the past few years. It was until last year they launched the competition nationwide in inter-university level. This year's Corporiddlerz kicked off on 17 July, 2017 and currently is open for registration for all the enthusiast university teams across Bangladesh. This nationwide competition is an opportunity for students of undergraduate level to showcase their integrated abilities of strategising, analytics and case solving skills based on real life scenarios and business solutions by different academic and corporate fraternities. Like previous year, BUP BCC is hosting this event for all undergraduate teams from universities all over the nation. The criteria given is that each team must consist of four members, they can be from any department or batch but must be from the same university. The competition will go through a series of four rounds: Online case study, product launching, project planning and grand finale. The champion team will walk home with a glorious prize money of one lac taka and the first and second runners-up getting 75 thousand and 50 thousand taka respectively. Apart from BUP BCC being the host, Sena Kalyan Sangstha (SKS) will be sponsoring the event as gold sponsor. The silver sponsors for this event are - Afser Group Bangladesh and Rotary Club of Dhanmnodi Central. Their digital media partner is Analyzen Bangladesh Limited, radio partner is Radio Foorti and other media partners are Channel i and the Financial Express Bangladesh.   So if you are an enthusiast, hurry up and get your team registered to be a part of the biggest battle of business prodigies in Bangladesh. The registration deadline is 27 July, 2017. To register your team please log in to: corporiddlerz.bupbcc.com. For more details, please follow www.facebook.com/corporiddlerz.bupbcc and www.facebook.com/bupbcc. To know more about BUP Business and Communication Club, readers may visit: http://www.bupbcc.com. The writer is a student at Bangladesh University of Professionals,  mahnoork555@gmail.com....

Published at: 2017-07-20 00:00:09

With the aim of creating social business leaders, each year the Social Business Youth Alliance (SBYA) Global arranges one of the biggest summits of the country named Social Business Youth Summit. The purpose is to brainstorm on and cultivate  the concept of social business in the minds of youths. SBYA Global's hope is to inspire social business practices from within students, activists, corporates or just dreamers. Social Business Youth Summit (SBYS) is a leading youth forum which acts as the bridge that brings together youths from around the globe and knowledgeable people of social business community. The enrichment of the resources in terms of both theoretical knowledge and phases of social business via the youth is the potent significance of this summit. The main message sent by this summit is to let the youth have a chance to see how impactful social business can be and has on normal lives among us. The summit is fully oriented on how the youth can emerge with social business ventures in real life and will be able to bring changes both in the world and in their own lives. This two days long summit will take place at the Westin, Dhaka on July 30 and 31, 2017. The father of social business -- Nobel Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus is the keynote speaker in this summit. Founder of SBYA Global Shazeeb M Khairul Islam will deliver welcome speech while opening remark will be addressed by Ambassador of Kingdom of Netherlands to Bangladesh Leoni Margarethe Cuelenaere.   This summit will visualise all communities of the society specially the people who are contributing in bringing the changes or are in pursuit of development by all good means. Students, entrepreneurs, academicians, professionals, activists, CSR practitioners, NGO representatives and any other individuals interested in making a difference for the causes they care most can join in this endeavour. The two-day celebration of youth achievement will also be attended by the US Ambassador to Bangladesh, Ambassador of Kingdom of Netherlands to Bangladesh, Ambassador of Royal Norwegian Embassy to Bangladesh, Hanz Reitz-co-founder of Grameen Creative Lab, Lamiya Morshed- executive director of Yunus Centre, Tafsir M. Awal- director of Multimode Group,  Parveen Mahmud- managing director of Telecom Trust, M. K. Aaref- director of EMK Centre, Wazed Roger Salam- CEO of Winners Circle, MFM Amir Khasru- general manager of Yunus Centre. SBYS was graced with a combined participation of 2,300 participants from 28 countries in previous years. This year SBYS attempts to create next generation social business into entrepreneurs who will be able to deal with all kinds of situations with maintainable solutions.  As many as 350 young minds will get the opportunity to learn more about social business where Prof Muhammad Yunus will be the key note speaker along with 30 more speakers from around the world. Interested individuals are encouraged to apply through the website http:/sbys.info before July 30, 2017. The writer is currently working for Social Business Youth Alliance (SBYA). He can be reached at connect@sbyaglobal.org....

Published at: 2017-07-20 00:00:09

Bankers recommended Wednesday providing incentives through banks to the beneficiaries of remittance as a mechanism to attract non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs) in sending money home through formal channel. The bankers put forward the suggestion at a meeting at Bangladesh Bank headquarters in the capital that runs counter to a finance ministry proposal in reducing the remittance cost -- providing incentives to the exchange houses at the senders' end, if necessary. The ministry had also requested the central bank to examine other ways of reducing the cost and attract the remitters to the formal channel. As a follow up, the BB convened the meeting with top 20 remittance- receiving banks operating in the country. Senior executives of the banks, who deal mainly with the inward remittance processing, and senior BB officials took part at the meeting, with BB executive director Ahmed Jamal in the chair. The bank executives also urged the central bank to take effective measures for stopping 'digital hundi' allegedly being conducted by the mobile financial services (MFS). They also suggested issuing a notification, asking the MFS providers to make sure that the remitters submitted their respective NIDs (National Identity Cards). It should be made mandatory.     A BB senior official said the bankers explained their positions and alleged that the overseas exchange houses impose commission on the money sent by the NRBs. "We do not impose any charge on the inward remittance," a senior executive of a leading private commercial bank (PCB) told the FE after the meeting. Majority of the bankers recommended the BB for taking measures to incentivise the remittance receivers instead of the senders, he said. It would help boost remittance inflow. "We'll communicate the recommendations with the finance ministry," an official of the BB said. The meeting discussed issues like the latest trend in inward remittance and the exchange rate of the local currency against the US dollar, particularly in cases of inward remittance. Besides, leakage in channelling small-sized remittances through non-bank channels came up for discussion, the private banker said. Another meeting with the top remittance-receiving banks is scheduled to be held on Monday next, mainly to discuss about making it mandatory to open a bank account by the workers before their going abroad. It might make them aware that they would have to send money home through the account, said a banker. The government's latest move came against the backdrop of falling trend in inward remittance in the recent months, following the slower development activities in the Middle-Eastern countries due to lower price of fuel oil in the global market. A rising trend in sending hard-earned money by expatriate Bangladeshis through informal channels has also pushed down the flow of inward remittances, according to the bankers. The inflow of remittance dropped by 14.48 per cent to US$12.77 billion in the outgoing fiscal year (FY) 2016-17 from $14.93 billion a year before, BB data showed. The central bank as well as the government is now working on revamping the flow of inward remittances in the current fiscal year. As part of the move, the central bank had asked the banks for taking measures to attract NRBs through improving the quality of remittance services. The banks have also been instructed to open 'help desk' at each branch concerned for ensuring better remittance services. siddique.islam@gmai.com....

Published at: 2017-07-20 00:00:07

Doulot Akter Mala A high-powered government body has proposed a fivefold raise in the ceiling of income tax payment through treasury chalan as a measure of preventing forgeries. It recommended enhancing the ceiling of income tax payment through treasury chalan to Tk 50,000 from the existing amount of Tk 10,000. The Cash and Debt Management Committee (CDMC) proposed the measure following several incidents of forgery in depositing the taxpayers' money with the public exchequer through pay-orders. Also, the system would expedite the deposit of tax money with the government exchequer. In the 35th meeting of the CDMC, representatives from the finance division, Bangladesh Bank (BB), the National Board of Revenue (NBR) and the office of Controller General of Accounts (CGA) decided to increase the ceiling of tax payment through treasury chalan. The decision has been placed with the ministry of finance for approval. A technical committee scrutinised the possibility of allowing tax payment only through treasury chalan instead of pay-order, demand draft and account-payee cheque. A member of the CDMC committee said all of the options of tax payment would be continued for facilitating taxpayers until automation of the tax- payment system. "Until introduction of online tax-payment system and online real-time cheque encashment and payment, the treasury chalan could be made optional, not mandatory, and pay order and cheque could be continued as interim system," the member said. Taxpayers can pay tax in any of the system now, he added. However, most of the taxpayers prefer pay-order and cheque for payment of tax due to limit of treasury chalan. Officials said delay in depositing the paid tax with the public exchequer causes mismatch in collection data of NBR and CGA. The government gets tax instantly if tax is paid through treasury chalan. Officials said the NBR detected several cases of forgery over depositing taxpayers' money with the exchequer. In an investigation, the tax authority found some pay orders deposited into another account instead of the exchequer. Earlier, a probe body had detected that a vested quarter had pocketed money of taxpayers through pay-order forgery. A three-member committee of income-tax officials launched the investigation following allegations of some pay-orders having gone missing and encashed under other names instead of the public exchequer. The committee had submitted its probe report to the NBR and Bangladesh Bank (BB) with its recommendations to check such thefts.       "Both banks and tax officials were involved in that forgery of pay-orders of the taxpayers," the report was quoted as saying. doulot_akter@yahoo.com....

Published at: 2017-07-20 00:00:07