The long-standing practice of hiding defaulted loans under policy support has been discontinued following the change in government. With the hidden layer removed, the actual situation has come to light — defaulted loans now stand at nearly six hundred and fifty thousand crore taka. As a result, pressure to recover loans has intensified, and banks are turning to the courts.

From April to June, banks filed 14,652 cases to recover approximately 97,000 crore taka of defaulted loans. In total, 407,435 crore taka in defaulted loans are now pending in courts.

According to Bangladesh Bank, by the end of June, there were 222,341 cases in financial loan courts, with 407,435 crore taka pending. In March, there were 219,633 cases, holding 320,761 crore taka. At a bankers’ meeting held yesterday at the central bank with bank chief executives, a report on this was presented. Governor Dr Ahsan H Mansur instructed banks to expedite the settlement of defaulted loan cases to make recovery efforts more effective.

Sources say that due to increased pressure, banks are filing more cases than ever before. Many large borrowers considered influential under the previous government are included, with most either absconding or in jail. This has resulted in a large number of recovery cases in a short time. The number of financial loan courts has also been increased from four to seven this year.