Bangladesh Bank on Wednesday urged all types of media to practice responsible journalism when reporting on the country's banking sector, cautioning that arbitrary calculations of "distressed loans" create unnecessary panic among the public.
In a press release issued by the Department of Communications and Publications (DCP), the central bank clarified its position regarding recent media analyses derived from the newly published ‘Financial Stability Report (FSR) 2025’.
The central bank noted that following the release of the FSR 2025, several newspapers and media published reports claiming that the banking sector's "distressed loan" ratio ranges anywhere between 45 percent, 59 percent, or even 60 percent based on their own calculations.
Dismissing these figures, Bangladesh Bank stated that no internationally recognized financial policymaking body has defined a standard definition for "distressed loans."
Generally, loans that yield no income or where installments are default are treated as distressed. However, the central bank clarified that unclassified rescheduled loans cannot be clubbed into this category because borrowers are actively and regularly paying back their designated installments.
Furthermore, the banking regulator pointed out that under international best practices, written-off loans are completely removed from a bank's balance sheet, meaning they also cannot be mathematically categorized as distressed loans.
According to the official data re-verified by the central bank, the actual Non-Performing Loan (NPL) or default loan ratio in the country's banking sector stood at 30.60 percent as of December 31, 2025.
Bangladesh Bank expressed strong reservations over combining actual default loans with legally rescheduled and written-off loans to project an inflated distressed loan ratio. The regulator warned that such reporting distorts macroeconomic realities and sends highly misleading signals to both domestic and international financial stakeholders regarding the health of Bangladesh's economy.
Considering the extreme sensitivity of the financial architecture and overall national interest, the central bank requested editors, reporters, and media houses to ensure maximum objectivity, depth, and precision when disseminating banking and economic data.