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Mercantile Bank Limited (MBL) has taken a number of new projects to consolidate its contribution in promoting country's trade and businesses.
"Our new product lines in SME include 'factoring of receivables' and another one is 'Udayan', under which start-up entrepreneurs will get maximum Tk 5.0 million for each project," Managing Director & CEO of Mercantile Bank Ltd, Kazi Masihur Rahman told The FE in an interview recently to mark the completion of 18 years of the leading private commercial bank.
The bank commenced its business operation on June 2, 1999.
Explaining different rip-roaring successes of the bank, the MBL MD & CEO said the Bank will receive credit lines from Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Jeddah-based Islamic Development Bank (IDB).
"We have already an arrangement with IDB, but it will be expanded very soon and a fresh arrangement is being developed with ADB which will be a boon for our valued clients," Kazi Masihur Rahman disclosed.
"The financial support from two international development partners will definitely reduce our risk and enhance our image," he added.
Mentioning the list of its contributions in the country's growing trade and businesses, the MD said highly sophisticated textile, garments, food processing, cement clinkers, steel mills etc are being financed by the bank.
"We are undertaking process reengineering to smartly and quickly serve the valued customers. We plan to expand MBL lending activities towards retail and small & medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) this year to spur the business growth. Simultaneously, we are refocusing on sustainable long-term growth of business, better deposit mix, improving the quality of assets, rationalising operating cost, improving operational efficiency and productivity of resources, better and faster customer services, expansion of branches, mobile banking services and strengthening the overall risk management and corporate governance system."
Mercantile Bank Ltd opened 10 branches simultaneously across the country, first of its kind in Bangladesh on December 22, 2016.
"This is really a unique development in our banking history and other banks may follow us in this regard as it saves both time and money," the MBL MD mentioned.
"Usually, a bank needs minimum 200 persons to open 10 branches in traditional way, but we appointed only 20 persons to accomplish the job very smoothly in a digitised way," he said.
MBL has been able to establish itself as a leading third generation private commercial bank by dint of its 'prudent policy guidelines coupled with proper execution, wider range of banking products and excellent customer services'.
MBL is continuously expanding its ATM network and linking contact with other banks with a view to making its card service more attractive and convenient to all. Besides, MBL is also providing other services through its 2 (two) subsidiary companies in home & abroad.
MBL has broad network coverage across the country. It has 119 branches including 5 SME/Krishi branches as on December 31, 2016. The Bank has 2 Off-shore Banking Units (OBU) operating at Gulshan and Chittagong EPZ areas.
During the year 2016, the bank's deposit base surged by 6.71 per cent to BDT 165.26 billion in comparison to 2015 while position of loan and advance portfolio experienced growth by 19.45 per cent to BDT 150.91 billion in compare with the immediate past year.
"Our enduring efforts to reining in the cost of deposit by mobilising no cost / free float deposit yielded good result as the cost of deposit came down to 6.25 per cent in 2016 from 7.52 per cent in 2015. During the year our export performance increased by 20.22 per cent to BDT 113.04 billion while import registered growth by 16.49 per cent to BDT 139.77 billion."
The bank's home-bound remittance experienced consistent growth which figured at BDT 24.05 billion during the year.
Profit after tax increased to BDT 2,227.36 million in the year 2016 from BDT 1,393.28 million in the year 2015, registering a thriving growth of 59.86 per cent.
"The profit growth momentum bears the testimony that despite the challenges in and around us, we performed well in term of our financial result by achieving targets almost on all sectors of our banking operations".
"We are continuously putting due emphasis on strengthening our IT platform and at the same time continuously providing more IT-based solution for our customers and for improving our operations work-flow".
From the beginning, MBL has adopted modern technologies to provide fast track customer-centric services to clients.
MBL is using TEMENOS T24 (R-ten Version), a Core Banking Solution (CBS) regarded as the leading banking software in the world, in its all 119 branches and head office and provides uninterrupted online banking facilities among all branches.