Bangladesh Bank yesterday banned 10 members of Sikder family and two officials of Sikder Group from using international credit cards for two years as they took loans from National Bank Ltd beyond their credit card limit grossly violating the banking rules.
The lender gave them $10.58 million (about Tk 91 crore) breaching the credit card limit set by the central bank.
They had spent the amount from 2017 to 2021 and each of them used several credit cards issued by NBL, according to a BB probe.
As per the rules, a Bangladeshi citizen cannot spend any more than $12,000 [around Tk 10.34 lakh] in a year outside the country using either their credit card or cash. In the aforementioned years, the 12 individuals were legally allowed to spend $720,000 (about Tk 6.20 crore) with their credit cards.
Of the 12 banned, Rick Haque Sikder and Ron Haque Sikder, sons of former NBL chairman Zainul Haque Sikder, are NBL directors.
The eight other members of the Sikder family are: Momtazul Haque, Dipu Haque Sikder, Lisa Fatema Haque, Monica Sikder Khan, Mandy Sikder, Zefri Sikder, Shon Haque Sikder and John Haque Sikder. The two executives of the Sikder Group are Syed Kamrul Islam and Varvara Zorina.
The central bank yesterday wrote to all lenders, including NBL, asking them not to issue any international credit cards to them.
Contacted, Md Serajul Islam, spokesperson and an executive director of the…
