Banking security must be placed at the centre of the new government’s economic priorities. Once trust is eroded through weak governance, fraud, or regulatory failure, confidence collapses quickly and instability follows.
In a stark blend of political reflection and economic warning, leading banker Mr Mosleh Uddin Ahmed, Managing Director and CEO of Shahjalal Islami Bank PLC, has cautioned that the new administration led by Tarique Rahman will ultimately be judged not by the scale of its electoral triumph, but by the durability of its economic legacy.
Speaking at the National Print Dialogue of The Daily Observer titled From Ballot to Balance Sheet: New Government, New Vision, he struck an uncompromising tone, weaving philosophical reflection with a hard-edged assessment of Bangladesh’s economic fault lines.
Governments, he observed, are not immortalised by the thunder of their arrival, but by the consequences they leave behind. The opening chapter may dazzle the nation, but history delivers its verdict only at the end. A tree, ultimately, is judged not by its blossoms, but by the weight of its fruits.
Against this backdrop, he said the new administration now stands at a defining threshold, having assumed office in last February’s landslide election amid an extraordinary surge of public expectation and political momentum rarely witnessed in the country’s modern history.
Yet his optimism was firmly tempered by warning.
Mr Ahmed painted a picture of a deepening structural crisis marked byentrenched corruption, persistent inflation driven by fuel volatility, widening inequality, rising youth unemployment, and a banking sector under sustained strain from non-performing loans, governance failures and financial abuse.
He stressed that the defining test of the government will be whether it can dismantle systemic corruption that has “engulfed almost every layer of society”, restore macroeconomic stability, and rebuild confidence in a financial system weakened by repeated scandals and capital erosion.
Reflecting on recent years, he pointed to a period of public disruption marked by frequent street mobilisation and restricted mobility. Today, he noted, there is a renewed sense of order and freedom under an elected administration, but warned that political stability must now translate into economic discipline and tangible livelihood security.
At the heart of his concern lies the banking sector, which he described as the lifeline of the economy but currently under acute pressure. Only a limited number of banks remain financially stable, while others face survival risks and consolidation challenges. This fragility, he warned, is already reflected in slowing private sector credit growth and weakening foreign direct investment inflows.
To arrest the slide, Mr Ahmed called for bold monetary easing, including a reduction in policy rates to restore liquidity and stimulate credit expansion. Without such steps, he cautioned, investment momentum and deposit mobilisation would remain subdued.
He also urged a reduction in government borrowing from the banking system, arguing that excessive domestic financing fuels inflation and crowds out private investment. Instead, he advocated the development of a secondary bond market to ensure a more sustainable fiscal financing structure.
“Banking security must be placed at the centre of the new government’s economic priorities,” he said. “No economy can sustain growth if its financial system is structurally vulnerable. Once trust is eroded through weak governance, fraud, or regulatory failure, confidence collapses quickly and instability follows.”
He added that banking security is no longer a technical concern but a question of national economic credibility. Investors and global partners, he noted, assess financial integrity before committing capital. Insecure banks translate into weakened trust, restricted credit, rising inflation, capital leakage, and ultimately diminished growth potential.
He further warned that credit flow to the real economy is entirely dependent on banking health, while rising non-performing loans and weak risk discipline are tightening lending conditions, slowing investment, and weakening job creation. In today’s digital economy, he added, the risks are further amplified by escalating cyber security threats, where a single breach can disrupt payments, compromise sensitive data, and undermine confidence across the entire financial system.
Turning to macroeconomic policy, he cautioned that excessive monetary expansion in the post-pandemic period had intensified inflationary pressures, tightening conditions for both businesses and households.
Quoting estimates presented at the dialogue, he noted that around 19.2% of Bangladesh’s population�"roughly 36 million people�"remain below the poverty line, with risks of further deterioration if inflation persists.
He described a widening national paradox: visible macroeconomic progress alongside deepening hardship. Poverty, he said, is increasingly defined not merely by deprivation, but by insecurity, inequality and shrinking opportunity.
The widening wealth gap, he warned, is being driven by corruption, banking irregularities, inflationary pressures and structural unemployment, leaving the middle class squeezed between stagnant incomes and rising costs.
Corruption, he emphasised, functions as a hidden tax on the poor, with siphoned financial resources returning to society through inflation, weakened public services and lost opportunity.
Inflation, particularly fuel-led price escalation, was identified as a key transmission channel of hardship, cascading through transport, food and production systems, with the poorest bearing the heaviest burden.
Youth unemployment, he added, remains a critical long-term risk, with educated young people increasingly unable to secure adequate employment, fuelling frustration, migration pressures and social instability.
Mr Ahmed concluded that the responsibility resting on the new administration is historic. The electorate, he said, did not vote merely for a change of leadership, but for economic justice, institutional accountability and restored hope.
He outlined four urgent imperatives: decisive action against financial corruption, strict inflation control, accelerated job creation through diversified investment, and strengthened social protection systems.
On welfare policy, he acknowledged that instruments such as family cards could provide short-term relief by subsidising essentials, but warned that without transparency, digital verification and strict oversight, such mechanisms risk inefficiency and capture by vested interests.
Ultimately, he argued, inequality cannot be resolved through subsidies alone. It demands structural transformation-quality education, accessible healthcare, fair wages and inclusive economic opportunity.
In closing, he cautioned that nations rarely collapse suddenly; they erode gradually when inequality deepens and trust in institutions weakens.
Bangladesh, he suggested, still stands at a decisive turning point. The question is no longer what has been achieved, but what must now be delivered-because in the end, a nation, like a tree, is judged not by its blossoms, but by its fruits.
