Bankers’ association welcomes restructured pay scale for bankers 

Welcoming the restructured pay scale for bankers, the Association of Bankers, Bangladesh (ABB) on Thursday said they will always accept any decision taken by the central bank for improving the living standards of bankers.

"We do not want to comment on what should be the entry-level salary for bankers. But we will always welcome any initiative taken by the regulator to improve the living standard of bankers," Selim RF Hussain, chairman of the ABB. 

At the same time, the ABB is also aware of the pay structure of the entire private job market, he said, adding that they also do not want to see any negative impact on the private sector from this salary hike. 

Initially, there were some ambiguities in the process to evaluate bankers' performance in the pay scale, which later were removed by the Bangladesh Bank, the ABB chairman noted.

Mentioning the recent termination of bank employees, Selim RF Hussain said, "The central bank in a meeting told us some banks did not follow the right process to assess the bankers' performance before having sacked them in the past."

In this regard, the ABB assured that from now on, all banks will follow international standards while evaluating their employees' performance.  

Earlier, the Bangladesh Bank instructed private banks to implement the newly-introduced salary structure for bank staff after an announcement of restructuring it from 1 April this year. 

The previous deadline was 1 March as the Bangladesh Association of Banks said it was not possible to implement the new pay structure by that time.

According to the latest circular, bank office assistants, such as security guards, cleaners, and messengers, will get Tk24,000, Tk21,000 and Tk18,000 as the minimum wage at divisional cities (including Narayanganj and Gazipur), district branches and upazilas respectively.

The ABB's president welcomed this initiative, mentioning that region-based salary ranges will help to reduce discriminations among the office assistants.  

In the first circular, the Bangladesh Bank had fixed a minimum wage for private bank officials, saying that bankers cannot be fired randomly if they do not achieve deposit collection and lending targets set by their employers, or on excuse of incompetence.