Banks in Bangladesh saw significantly decreased customer activity on Sunday, as the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement announced a non-cooperation movement across the country.
Bank officials said that a notable decline in customer turnout, with only those having urgent transactions visiting the branches. Most customers went for withdrawing deposits.
Employees of both the central bank and commercial banks at Motijheel in the capital Dhaka were observed leaving their offices after 2:00pm, despite no formal directive.
Bankers attributed this early departure to transportation challenges and widespread unrest throughout the country.
Many officials were also absent due to transportation unavailability.
Several banks and branches at Motijheel had their main gates closed, with minimal customer footfall for banking services.
Some of the branches that were open could not provide services to all the customers visiting them due to a lack of liquidity. They could not bring in cash from their respective main branches or other branches due to transportation challenges.
Many ATM booths were also closed as bank officials were unable to visit the booths and load cash into the machines due to the ongoing unrests. Moreover, customers were unsuccessful when they tried to withdraw cash using cards of one bank from ATMs of other banks.
Md Shafiqul Islam, general manager of Sonali Bank鈥檚 Motijheel local office branch, said that employees residing in remote areas left after completing their tasks early due to limited transportation options.
He said that the government announced a fresh curfew from 6:00pm and that was why the officials who live in remote areas left office early.
The Anti-Discrimination Students Movement on Saturday announced their non-cooperation movement from Sunday, resulting clashes across the country on Sunday.
The government had previously imposed a curfew starting at midnight on July 19 amid unrests over quota reform protests.
Banking and other business activities had come to a standstill which affected the general people and depositors as they had run out of cash.
The curfew was relaxed on July 24 to allow offices and banks to operate for a limited time. However, all offices resumed normal schedules on July 31.
However, the government cancelled relaxation of curfew and re-imposed extended curfew for an indefinite period.
It also announced general holidays for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, keeping all offices, including banks, shut.
Bangladesh Bank spokesperson and executive director Mezbaul Haque confirmed the three-day closure of banks and non-bank financial institutions in response to the ongoing developments.