Rumee Ali quits as AB Bank chairman 

After a three-year effort to pull out AB Bank from its critical state, Mohammad A (Rumee) Ali left the bank, declining to continue for another term as its chairman.

In the annual general meeting of the bank held on Wednesday, he parted ways with the bank.

"I withdrew my name from the re-election to the chairman post in the annual meeting of the bank as I am not interested to stay with the bank anymore," he told The Business Standard.

He said, "I have tried my best to reshape the bank in the last three years. Now the bank needs capital to move forward."

It is not possible to run the bank without injecting capital and the issue was raised before the owners several times in the last five/six months but they did not pay heed.

He said the bank cannot lend without having enough capital. If the bank cannot lend, its financial health will deteriorate. "In this situation, I cannot run the bank," he said.

Rumee Ali took the helm of the bank in the year 2019 when the financial health of the lender was in a critical state due to massive corruption and high default loans.

However, the bank had a turnaround after a year of his joining due to massive drive in loan recovery and improving management efficiency.

The bank was upgraded to "B" category in the year 2020 by declaring dividends after remaining in "Z" category since 2017.

The bank also improved its capital by raising funds above Tk400 crore through issuing perpetual bonds.

The default loan of the bank brought down to 14% in March this year which was above 35% before Ali joined the bank.

When talking to The Business Standard, Ali said, "I came to the bank with a purpose and I made many improvements to its financial health. However, I was stuck on one issue: capital. Because the default loan burden of the bank is so high that it needs capital injection to expand its lending activities.

"We already raised capital through issuing bonds and now its owners have to think of another way to raise capital."

He said there was no other role to play from the management. 

From 2017, Rumee Ali has also served as an independent director of Eastland Insurance Company Ltd.

In this regard, an official of AB Bank said according to the central bank policy, a director of any other bank, financial institution or insurance company cannot be the chairman of another bank.