Private sector credit growth sinks to 14-month low

Business Desk :
Bangladesh’s private sector credit growth dropped to a 14-month low of 11.23% in April due to weak credit demand amid the current economic slowdown.
This was the fifth consecutive monthly decline as businesses continued to remain cautious in their approach due to various uncertainties at home and abroad.
Banks’ finance to the private sector stood at Tk1,457,400 crore in April, according to data from the Bangladesh Bank.
The deposit growth slowed in the third and fourth quarters of 2022 compared to the second quarter.

Overall, the growth of deposits slowed to 5% at the end of 2022, much lower than the 9.6% recorded a year ago, BB data showed.
As of December, deposits totalled Tk1,588,010 crore in the banking system.
In April 2020, the central bank imposed an interest rate cap of 9% on loans with a view to giving a boost to credit growth.
But it did not increase much, initially because of the slowdown induced by the Covid-19 pandemic and the later by the Russia-Ukraine War.