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United Commercial Bank Limited incorporated on 26 June 1983 as a public company with limited liability under the
Companies Act
1994. The bank obtained permission to commence business with effect from 26 June 1983 and started banking operations on 29 June 1983 with an authorised capital of Tk 100 million divided into 1 million ordinary shares of Tk 100 each. The paid up capital was Tk 35.5 million. Later, both authorised and paid up capital were increased several times and on 31 December 2000, they stood at Tk 1,000 million and Tk 230.16 million respectively. Of the total paid up capital, Tk 101.56 million was paid by its 37 sponsors; 3,048 members of general public shareholder paid Tk 114.54 million and the remaining Tk 14.06 million were subscribed by the government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. Reserve funds of the bank comprised statutory reserves and general reserves of Tk 334.78 million in 1999 as against Tk 85.88 million in 1990. The bank is listed with Dhaka and Chittagong Stock Exchanges. The bank carries out all type of commercial banking activities. On 31 December 2000, the assets of the bank were valued at Tk 15,919.7 million and the off-balance-sheet items amounted to at Tk 19,906.1 million. Total deposits of the bank amounted to Tk 12,158.2 million which comprised savings deposits Tk 3,988.21 million, fixed deposits Tk 2,925.7 million, current deposits Tk 1,654.5 million and other contingency accounts Tk 3,589.8 million. Interest rate offered by the bank on the various types of deposits varied between 7.5% and 10%. Loans and advances made by the bank up to the reference date totaled Tk 9,443.9 million. These included medium, long term and working capital loans to large, medium and small scale industrial units, housing, export and import financing, and credit to trade and commerce. Lending rates varied between 10% and 16.5%. Of its total loans and advances, 33.79% was classified as per loan classification rule in force in the country. Investments of the bank other than lending at the end of December 2000 were Tk 2,655.14 million which comprised ordinary shares of companies Tk 52.25 million, debenture Tk 87.63 million, prize bonds Tk 5.26 million, 5% 3-years T&T Bonds Tk 50 million, 5% 3-years Biman Bond Tk 50 million, government treasury bills Tk 1,160 million, and Grameen Bank Bond Tk 150 million. Foreign exchange business of the bank was confined to export servicing and import financing and the amount during the year 1999 totaled Tk 19,768 million that comprised export servicing Tk 5,616 million and import financing Tk 14,151 million. The bank has correspondent relationships with 130 foreign banks and financial institutions. The bank has a huge amount of its aggregate loans and advances as overdue that turned into non-performing loans. These were classified and the compulsory provisioning for them from its profits affected the earning capacity of the bank's assets, which in turn reduced its profitability.
The management of the bank is vested in a 20-member board
of directors with the managing director as the chief executive. In 2001,
the bank had 81 branches and a total of 1,960 employees. [S M Mahfuzur
Rahman] |
