Bangladesh Bank has proposed a Tk 60,000 crore fund every year from the national budget for the next five to eight years to cover money plundered from banks, said Governor Md Mostaqur Rahman on Saturday, 11 October 2026.
If approved for the full eight years, the government must provide Tk 4.8 lakh crore to the banking sector. The sum would be Tk 3 lakh crore if the plan runs for five years, he said at the launch of Bangla QR with ONE Bank at United International University.
Defaulted loans in the sector currently stand at Tk 6.06 lakh crore. The governor stated that roughly one-third of the money in the banking system had been plundered by the time he took charge in February.
The money siphoned out belongs to the public and must be returned, he said. He added that the public is paying the penalty for looting carried out by another group.
He noted that the same sum could fund a monthly subsidy of Tk 2,500 for two crore families. Alternatively, the yearly amount could pay for two projects the size of the Padma bridge.
Every depositor will get their money back, he said. However, the damage to the financial system is serious and will take five to eight years to repair with public subsidies.
Withdrawal restrictions at Sommilito Islami Bank and National Bank have been eased at a high cost. Regulations have changed over the past four months to let firms such as Google Pay, Stripe and PayPal operate.
The central bank is also making sending money abroad easier and legal. Local providers now have permission to do so, which will shrink the demand for grey market transfers.
Printing and moving physical cash costs about Tk 20,000 crore a year. Bangla QR could cut this cost by at least 50 percent initially.
Person-to-person transfers are due from November, after which people will no longer need cash for them. China, India, Pakistan and Brazil went through the same transition, he said.
A nationwide shift to Bangla QR could raise government revenue by up to Tk 2 lakh crore by closing leakages in tax and VAT collection. Cash-based trade makes tax evasion easy while digital transactions leave a record, he said.
Citing Pakistan, where the tax-GDP ratio reached 10.3 percent in fiscal year 2025 amid digital reforms, Bangladesh could expect a rise of at least two percentage points. The real taxpayer is the consumer since businesses pass on costs and taxes, he said, adding that QR payments are meant to lower that burden.