BB raises bank loan interest ceiling 

Bangladesh Bank (BB) has continued to raise the benchmark interest rate for bank loans.

The central bank has raised a maximum of 12.43 percent interest on loans from February, as a result customers will have to be charged about 13.5 percent. In January, it was 11.89 percent, but customers had to be charged about 12.89 percent.

The rate, derived from the Six-month Moving Average of Rate of Treasury bill or SMART method, will be 8.68 percent in February, with banks allowed to add 3.75 percentage points on top of it for consumer loans.

Previously, the biggest one-month surge in the SMART rate was 42 basis points, reaching 8.14 percent in December.