Shop Owners' Association Demands Banks' Weekly Holiday Be Cut to One Day

The Bangladesh Shop Owners' Association has demanded that the weekly holiday of all commercial banks in the country be reduced to one day. According to the organisation, traders face obstacles in financial transactions when banks remain closed for several days in a row. The demand was made in a press release sent to the media on Saturday.

In the release, the association's president, Md Helal Uddin, said the country must not be pushed into a 'holiday trap' in a way that harms traders' lives and property. Just as essential services such as electricity, water, gas, police stations and hospitals cannot be shut down, he argued, banks should not remain closed for more than one day either.

The association alleged that on any pretext, an extra day's holiday is added to the Friday-Saturday weekly break, and that banks are sometimes kept closed on Thursdays or Sundays instead. This creates long stretches of holidays that negatively affect business activities.

Banks are a financial service sector, the release said. In addition to the two-day weekly holiday, banks remain closed for 120 to 130 days a year when Eid-ul-Fitr, Eid-ul-Azha, Puja, Christmas and other public holidays are counted — severely obstructing traders' banking transactions.

The association claimed that traders normally pay 14 to 15 percent interest on bank loans, but because of long holidays that burden rises to 25 to 30 percent, increasing business costs and causing financial losses to traders.

The organisation also questioned the need for long holidays at a time when travelling from one end of Bangladesh to the other takes no more than five to six hours.

Long holidays push traders in tourism, fuel, hotels and restaurants, as well as retail and wholesale businesses, into financial crisis, the release said. During holidays of five to seven days, transactions worth thousands of crores of taka take place, and keeping such huge amounts of money at home or in business establishments is not possible, it added.

Because banks stay closed for long periods, traders are forced to keep large amounts of cash with themselves, increasing their anxiety about the security of the money and forcing them to spend days and nights worrying about protecting their lives and property, the association said.

The association also claimed that theft, robbery and snatching increase abnormally because of long holidays, causing traders financial losses.

The release linked the demand to the burden of loan interest as well: while transactions stop on holidays, interest calculations do not — an economic argument the organisation put behind its call to shorten the weekly break.

To keep business transactions running, reduce the extra pressure of interest and ensure the security of traders' lives and property, the association demanded that the weekly holiday of all commercial banks be brought down to one day. Traders are now watching to see what decision the authorities take on the demand.