The central bank has sought information on overdue import bills up to December 31, 2018 from the commercial banks by January 13, as the amount of such bills stood at around US$ 600 million.
"We've sent letters to all foreign exchange dealer banks in this connection with a prescribed format to get the information immediately," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) told the FE on Tuesday.
BB will take the next course of action after receiving the information from the banks, he added.
"There have been allegations in the recent times that the authorised dealer (AD) branches do not settle import payment bills within the maturity date despite giving acceptance, which is unfortunate," the central bank said in its letter.
Talking to the FE, another BB official said the central bank will verify the information, provided by the banks concerned, with its 'dashboard' electronic system.
BB earlier launched the system for monitoring all kinds of foreign exchange transactions, aiming to check fraud and forgery in the country's banking sector.
'Dashboard' provides summary of export, import, inland back-to-back letters of credit (LCs), and inward-outward remittance transactions with categorically separated details.
"We cannot accept anything that tarnishes the country's image abroad," the central banker said while replying to a query on overdue import bills and other relevant matters.
