BB disagree from delivering information to ACC permission before court

Bangladesh Bank (BB) on Sunday barred its listed banks and financial institutions from providing any kind of information of clients to the anti corruption commission (ACC) without written order or directives from the court.

BB issued the directives along with an office order of the ACC circulated on 23 June 2009.

BB said, according to the law, ACC and the police cannot ask for any kind of information of the clients' accounts without the court order. The banks and the financial institutions also have no legal rights to do so.

The BB directives said, “ACC at times asked for account information of different people or institutions from the banks. According to the clause 5 and 6 (a) of the bankers books evidence act (BBEA) 1891, and act 94 (a) of the code of criminal procedure (CrPC) 1898, there is no way for a bank to provide information to anyone about any of its account holder without proper instruction from the court.”

Officials of Bangladesh Bank and several other private banks said ACC and police have asked for customer information from several banks in recent times. Some of the banks gave information to ACC on the basis of their application. Some other banks requested for BB’s decision.

ACC chairman M Badiuzzaman told Prothom Alo that Bangladesh Bank issued the instruction on the basis of a office order issued by the ACC, fearing that the client information might be misused at times.

Asked if such order might affect investigations, the ACC chairman said, “There won’t be any big problem. If ACC so feels, it will seek court orders to investigate such account information.”

Several officials of Bangladesh Bank said, according to the law, only Bangladesh Bank, the national board of revenue (NBR) and the court can ask for an individual's account information. Banks and financial institutions have legal obligation to provide customer information to them.

Managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of Meghna Bank M Nurul Amin said the banks and financial institutions were forced by different agencies to provide information about individuals and organisations during the tenure of the army-backed caretaker government. Directives of Bangladesh Bank were required after that.

Nurul Amin also said that the confidentiality of a client's information would be assured and proper procedures would be followed to in this regard.