The Covid-19 pandemic pushed up default bank loans to 8 per cent to Tk1.3 trillion ( 1 trillion is equal to Tk 1 lakh crore) in last December. Bangladesh Bank (BB) failed to curb the loans default despite providing a number of facilities including moratorium (a loan moratorium is a legally authorized period that delays the payment of money due on account of specific loan instalments) of instalment payments. According to BB’s latest data, the default loans amount stood in December 2021 at over Tk1.3 trillion (8 per cent of total loans), that was Tk 88734 crore (7.66 per cent) in December 2020. Read: BB asks NBFIs comply with Banker's Book Evidence Act-2021 to avoid imprisonment According to the latest data from the central bank, at the end of December last year, the total debt of the banking sector stood at Tk13.18 trillion. At the end of September, the total debt balance was Tk12. 45 trillion. Of this, the defaulted loans shot to Tk1.15 trillion, which was 8.12 per cent of the total debt. Till June last year, the total amount of loans disbursed in the banking sector was Tk12.13 trillion. The defaulted loans stood at Tk 99205 crore. In the three months from March to June, defaulted loans increased by Tk 3,899 crore, the BB sources said. Read: Economy resilient, no liquidity shortages in banks: BB governor Of the new defaulted loans, more than Tk 11,000 crore has been raised in private banks and more than Tk 2,000 crore in state owned banks. Due to this increase, the private banks overtook the unrealised loans in the government banks. However, the default rate in the state banks is more than three times that of private banks. About 20 per cent of the loans disbursed in the state-owned banks have been defaulted. Even if it increases a lot in one year, the default rate among the disbursed loans is a little more than 5 per cent. Read Remittance to exceed $25 billion by end of current fiscal : Finance Minister Although the situation of public, private and foreign banks has deteriorated in the last one year, the situation of three specialized banks has improved. These banks have been able to reduce defaulted loans.