The loan default rate in Bangladesh now stands at 10.11 percent of total loans. In Sri Lanka, which is facing economic crisis, this rate is 13.33 percent. In Pakistan it is 7.4 percent.
Default loan rate is low in India. India’s loan default rate came down to 3.9 percent in the first quarter (January-March) of this year. The country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), estimates it will fall to 3.6 percent next year.
Speaking to Prothom Alo, Mustafizur Rahman, distinguished fellow at the Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said that many countries, including India, have been successful in curbing defaulted loans. They have managed to do this by strictly enforcing bankruptcy laws and through monitoring the central bank and other institutions. In Bangladesh also, institutions will have to be strengthened to control default loans.
The World Bank publishes accounts of defaulted loans of different countries on its website. This shows that the default loans of Bangladesh are continuously increasing. Bangladesh’s loan default rate in 2013 was 4.8 percent. In the next year i.e. 2014, it increased to 9.4 percent.
According to World Bank data, Bangladesh’s loan default rate reached close to 10 percent in 2018. After this there was some reduction in it. According to Bangladesh Bank records, defaulted loans have increased again.
A picture of India’s loan default is also available on the World Bank website. According to him, India’s default loans were 10 percent of its total debt in 2017, which fell to 6.6 percent in 2021.