Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor Khondokar Ibrahim Khaled yesterday brushed aside recent allegations that the central bank is biased against banks running on Islamic principles.

"A certain quarter is trying to undermine the role of the central bank with allegations that it is harassing Islamic banks by engaging non-Mus-

Ilins to supervise those." Khaled told The Daily Star yesterday.

The quarter Is trying to raise religious Issues in banking practices just to conceal their misdeeds, he said.

"The fact is that as Bangladesh Bank supervises all banking operations in the country, it imparts training to its supervising officers on all types of banking activities. Be-

sides operational knowledge, the officers have to develop >• pertise on banking law. bo the question is whether they have the right banking expertise, and not whether he or she is a Muslim or not."

The question is whether he or she has knowledge or efficiency. the deputy governor said. The central bank sends an Inspector specialised in foreign trade to a bank dealing in foreign trade.

"An inspector specialised in Islamic banking is sent to an Islamic bank. Bangladesh Bank never sends a Muslim or a Hindu to any bank for inspection. it sends banking inspectors." Khaled said.

The central bank is well equipped and has all capabilities and skills to supervise al) types of banking Including Islamic banking, he affirmed.

"Islam! Bank Is not a religious Institution. It is a banking institution operating under the Banking Company Act. So all the citizens have access to this bank and there Is no law or rule which restricts entry of a non-Muslim to Islam! Bank

"The central bank does not know existence of any law that restricts a non-Muslim from being its employee or client Bank monitoring is not a religious ritual. Rather. It is a professional Job. Only professionals perform this Job. The question to consider religion does not arise at all".

Khaled said there are Islamic banks in non-Muslim countries and a good number of non-Muslims deposit their money with those banks Just to earn more profit. In those countries, all the monitoring officials of centra) banks are non-Musllms. But sponsors of those banks never raised any question regarding this, he added.

He said conventional commercial banks can also Intro-

duce Islamic banking services and for this they don’t have to take any prior approval

For example. Prime Hank Is a conventional commercial bank which has two ty|>es of banking, one based on interest and the other on Islamic banking system. When central bank officials go to Prime Bank for Inspection, they monitor all activities of the bank including Islamic banking. In this case, only professionalism works, there Is no scope to consider religion. he said.

There are some Islamic banks such as Is la ml Bank BD Ltd and Al-Baraka Bank Ltd. which introduced diversified systems. Most of the high officials including chief executives of these banks worked in conventional commercial banks for long with professional competence before Joining those banks. They are doing a good Job and they never raised any such question, he said.