Padma Bank depositors have staged a demonstration outside Bangladesh Bank in Motijheel, demanding a roadmap for the repayment of their savings, a week after the central bank said it was working to revive the struggling lender.
The protest began at 10am on Wednesday. When some depositors tried to enter the central bank building, security personnel stopped them.
Depositor Zakir Hossain said they wanted to enter the building to submit a memorandum to the governor.
The governor is currently in Thailand to attend the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Unable to enter the building, the depositors submitted the memorandum addressed to him.
Zakir, one of the signatories, told bdnews24.com that Padma Bank depositors deserved the same assistance from Bangladesh Bank as depositors of other banks.
“Bangladesh Bank must help Padma Bank depositors just as it helps depositors of other banks. We also need liquidity support. We have submitted the memorandum and will wait. If no action is taken, we will announce further programmes,” he said.
In the memorandum, the depositors said they had placed their savings with the bank in trust in Bangladesh Bank, using money earned through a lifetime of work, pensions, medical savings and proceeds from selling their assets.
“It is deeply distressing that Padma Bank has failed to return ordinary customers' deposits long after they matured,” the memorandum said.
It alleged that depositors were repeatedly humiliated and deceived when visiting bank branches. Some depositors had died without receiving medical treatment because they could not afford it, while others had been left destitute and unable to support their families, it added.
On Oct 6, Bangladesh Bank spokesperson Arief Hossain Khan said the central bank was trying to make private lender Padma Bank, formerly known as The Farmers Bank, more operational rather than liquidating it.
Responding to questions from journalists, he said Bangladesh Bank had not decided to shut down the bank.
“There has been no decision by Bangladesh Bank to close this bank. I am saying this emphatically,” he said.
The financially distressed lender has received liquidity support from Bangladesh Bank at different times, with state-owned banks acting as intermediaries to keep its operations running.
The state-owned Sonali, Janata, Agrani and Rupali banks injected fresh deposits alongside their existing deposits, converting their funds into investments in 2019 to acquire shares in Padma Bank.
The four banks collectively hold around 68 percent of its shares.
To facilitate the arrangement, provisions of the Bank Company Act governing directors were relaxed to allow the managing directors of the state-owned banks to join Padma Bank's board.
The state-owned banks' managing directors have continued to oversee the lender since then. The state-owned Investment Corporation of Bangladesh (ICB) also acquired shares in the bank.
Padma Bank is currently chaired by Sonali Bank Managing Director Shawkat Ali Khan.
According to Padma Bank's latest published financial data, more than 91 percent of its disbursed loans had become classified as defaulted by the end of June 2025.
The bank had a capital shortfall of Tk 45.33 billion.
At the end of June 2025, its total outstanding loans stood at Tk 55.98 billion, of which Tk 51.31 billion were classified as defaulted.
Deposits totalled Tk 63.47 billion during the same period, while the bank recorded an operating loss of Tk 3.41 billion.