Bangladesh Bank has called for an explanation from Islamic Shariah-based Union Bank Limited on how an amount of Tk 19 crore went missing from the vault of its Gulshan branch.

“The central bank has asked the Union Bank authorities to give explanation about the incident within next 7 days”, Sirajul Islam, spokesman of the Bangladesh Bank told reporters on Thursday.

An inspection team of Bangladesh Bank on Monday unearthed a mismatch between the preserved cash in the branch’s vault and the actual amount mentioned in the cash register.

It was found by the team that the vault should have a preserved amount of Tk 31 crore while it had available cash of Tk 12 crore.  

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Following the incident, the central bank moved to ask for an explanation from the bank management.  

Sirajul Islam said if the explanation is not satisfactory, the central bank will take action as per banking rules and regulation.

Meanwhile, the Union Bank authorities also formed a 5-member committee to investigate the incident of money disappearance from the vault and withdrew three of its officials responsible for maintaining the vault-account.

Deputy managing director the Union Bank Hasan Iqbal informed the media about the steps taken by the management.

He, however, said there was no disappearance of cash from the vault. Rather, this happened because of the cash withdrawal by a VIP client beyond the banking hours.

But he refused to disclose the name of the VIP client.

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Iqbal also claimed that the next day, the transaction was formalised in presence of Bangladesh Bank inspection team and the cash in the vault was adjusted with the bank’s cash register.