National Bank's loss triples in nine months

The loss of National Bank, a listed private commercial bank, tripled in the first nine months of 2023 because of high amount of classified loans.

In the January-September period, the bank made a loss of Tk 1,123 crore this year, up from last year's Tk 357 crore loss.

The bank incurred a loss of around Tk 500 crore in the last three months to September this year, up from Tk 183 crore loss in the same period last year.

The bank's losses rose due to liquidity crunch in market for inflation in world economy as well as in Bangladesh and borrowers' failure to repay loan instalments in time, it said in a disclosure posted on the Dhaka Stock Exchange website today.

Interest on such loans and advance could not be added to income and at the same time profitability and earnings per share decreased significantly, it added.

The bank's EPS was Tk 1.55 in the negative in the third quarter of 2023, which was Tk 0.57 in the negative in the same quarter of 2022.

The price of each share of National Bank was Tk 8.30 today.