Standard Chartered
Few will be surprised by this choice. Standard Chartered has been operating in the Bangladesh for 116 years, making it the oldest foreign bank in the country. It is part of the firmament in a way no other foreign bank can hope to emulate.
The Bangladesh economy has been growing at between 5% and 7% for the past decade. Local CEO Naser Ezaz Bijoy has positioned the bank to capitalize on that rapid growth, which is driving demand for power, energy, transportation and urban development. As a result, StanChart is already supporting various key multi-billion-dollar infrastructure projects such as the construction of a third terminal at Dhaka Airport (a $2.5 billion project), the $1.98 billion Bangabandhu Railway Bridge and $1.2 billion Dhaka Elevated Expressway.
The bank accounted for 8% and 9% of all export and import financing, respectively, last year, as well as 23% of power generation financing and 44% of all SME lending by foreign banks. That gives StanChart an interesting perspective. Bijoy warns that while “banks need to be prudent” because the country’s large companies are becoming increasingly leveraged, they have scalable positions in the booming economy, “so bankers also shouldn’t be restrictive”.
Bangladesh’s