Feb.28, 2010, 1:30 p.m. EST
The central bank of Bangladesh has asked the commercial banks to comply with 'Know Your Customer (KYC)' in line with Anti-Money Laundering rules for nearly 70,000 bank accounts by March 31 this year.
"Those bank accounts will be considered as dormant ones after the deadline," a senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the country's central bank, told AHN Media in Dhaka on Sunday.
He also said accountholders will be allowed to deposit their money with the accounts, but they would not be allowed to withdraw the fund before the compliance with KYC rules.
Of those accounts, which were opened before April 2002, around 40,000 accounts are almost inactive while 27,000 are active, the central bank official confirmed.
The central bank of Bangladesh issued a circular on Sunday in this connection and asked the chief executives of all commercial banks and non-banking financial institutions for taking effective measures to comply with the KYC procedures properly for the accounts within the deadline.
The BB earlier asked all scheduled banks to comply with the KYC rules for all accounts by the end of January this year for detecting suspicious transactions.