Bangladesh, banking supervision
Bangladesh banking sector, system view
A system-level view of Bangladesh’s banking sector, built from Bangladesh Bank published data. This page reports the sector only in aggregate: one system-wide row and four bank categories (state-owned commercial, private commercial, foreign, specialized). It does not name any bank, and by design it attaches no weakness, distress signal, ranking, or score to any named institution. That is a settled editorial policy, not a technical limit: the underlying figures describe real, operating banks, so the finest grain this module ever shows is the bank category.
System trend, IMF Financial Soundness Indicators
The authoritative complete-population figures the Bangladesh Bank reports to the IMF, annual through 2024. Both series jump in 2024: system NPL rises to 18.96% and the regulatory capital ratio falls to 5.59%, reflecting the post-August-2024 “honest accounting” reclassification that forced recognition and provisioning of previously understated bad loans.
Nonperforming loans to total gross loans
2011–2024, percent, annual
Regulatory capital to risk-weighted assets
2011–2024, percent, annual
Source: IMF Financial Soundness Indicators (FSI), Bangladesh. License: IMF FSI, attribution required. Annual observations; the latest published year for Bangladesh at build time. Methodology
Where the sector splits: the category cross-section
The register is a single cross-sectional snapshot (one most-recently-disclosed period per bank), not a historical panel, so there is no category-level time series to plot as a trend. What it does show is the gap between ownership groups. Each bar carries its own disclosure coverage; no figure is zero-filled where a bank does not report.
Weighted NPL ratio by category
loan-weighted, percent. State-owned banks carry the sector’s distressed loans.
Weighted capital ratio by category
asset-weighted, percent; dashed line is Bangladesh Bank’s 12.5% Basel III minimum.
| Bank category | Banks | Total assets | Weighted NPL | Weighted CAR | Below 12.5% | Modal vintage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State-owned commercial banks | 7 | ৳2.15 tn(3) | 54.1%(6) | 0.2%(1) | 1 of 1 | 2024-12-31 |
| Specialized banks (agri/expat/development) | 3 | ৳435.85 bn(2) | 18.9%(3) | no disclosure | 0 of 0 | 2023-06-30 |
| Private commercial banks (conventional + Islamic) | 38 | ৳15.47 tn(32) | 18.6%(26) | 14.3%(9) | 1 of 11 | 2024-12-31 |
| Foreign commercial banks | 9 | ৳1.01 tn(4) | 2.3%(3) | 38.7%(3) | 0 of 3 | 2024-12-31 |
Parenthetical counts are the number of banks disclosing that field (the coverage denominator). Total assets are in full BDT (৳ tn = trillion). “Below 12.5%” counts banks under the regulatory minimum against those that disclose a capital ratio at all, and never identifies them.
Source: Bangladesh Bank publications, via the BDPolicyLab 57-bank tracker. License: Bank public disclosures and Bangladesh Bank circulars; category aggregates derived by FinObservatory. Single cross-sectional snapshot; underlying vintages span FY2022-23 to Q4 2025. Methodology
Banks below the regulatory capital minimum
This is a count, never a list of names, and it is a point-in-time figure: the register is a single snapshot, not a period-by-period panel, so there is no history behind this count to chart as a trend. The denominator is the 15 banks that disclose a capital ratio at all, out of 57; capital adequacy is one of the least-disclosed fields in the sector, so read this against the complete-population IMF FSI capital ratio of 5.59% (2024) above.
Source: Bangladesh Bank publications, via the BDPolicyLab 57-bank tracker Count of banks below the Basel III minimum among those disclosing a capital ratio; no institution identified. Methodology
Register versus IMF FSI: the perimeter difference
The register aggregates and the IMF FSI figures measure the same sector on different perimeters. The IMF FSI series is the authoritative complete-population figure; the register’s weighted aggregates cover only the banks that disclose each field, a disclosure-limited and skewed subset. Both are shown; the gap is not reconciled away.
| Indicator | IMF FSI (whole system) | Register (weighted, partial coverage) |
|---|---|---|
| NPL to gross loans | 18.96% (2024) | 29.09% (38 of 57 banks) |
| Regulatory capital to RWA | 5.59% (2024) | 16.56% (13 of 57 banks) |
Why they differ: the register’s NPL figure exists mostly for large, distress-skewed banks, so it runs above the complete-population IMF figure; its capital ratio, by contrast, is disclosed mainly by strongly capitalised private and foreign banks and under-represents the state-owned and specialised banks that pull the true system figure down, so it runs above the IMF figure too. Treat the IMF FSI series as the system-wide truth and the register’s weighted figures only with their coverage denominators.
Source: IMF Financial Soundness Indicators (FSI), Bangladesh | Bangladesh Bank publications, via the BDPolicyLab 57-bank tracker Perimeter and disclosure-coverage difference; see the methodology for the full reconciliation. Methodology
Reading this dashboard
- Everything here is a system or bank-category aggregate. No individual bank is named, ranked, or scored, by design.
- The IMF FSI series is the authoritative complete-population figure; the register snapshot adds the current category breakdown but covers only disclosing banks, always shown with its denominator.
- This is reference information about the banking system, not investment, compliance, or supervisory advice, and not a rating of any institution. See the methodology for source lineage, definitions, the aggregates-only decision, the FSI perimeter comparison, and staleness.