Padma Bank MD resigns

Business Desk :
Tarek Reaz Khan, managing director of the embattled Padma Bank, has resigned from his post citing personal reasons.

Khan, who took charge of Padma Bank in March last year on a three-year tenure, handed in his resignation letter to the bank on Sunday, a director of the bank confirmed to the media. He asked not to be named.

The director, who asked not to be named, did not share the contents of the letter.

Faisal Ahsan Chowdhury, the deputy MD of Padma Bank, said he was unaware of Khan stepping down.

“He is on leave as his wife is suffering from cancer,” Chowdhury said.

Khan’s resignation comes at a time when the bank is mired in a liquidity crisis.

It was struggling to make the instalments every six months for a Tk 55 crore penalty it faces for failing to maintain the minimum level of cash reserve from 2017 to 2019.

The penalty was supposed to be cleared by 2025 but Padma will get until April 2028 to do so after the Bangladesh Bank board last month agreed to the time extension considering its fund crunch.

This comes after the BB in March 2021 waived a Tk 89 crore penalty for the bank levied for its failure to maintain the minimum level of liquidity between October 2017 and December 2019.