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This study examines the effects of Mobile Financial Services (MFS) on the growth and composition of bank deposits in Bangladesh over the period 2015-2024 based on bank-level panel data for 26 commercial banks. Using Fixed Effects (FE), Random Effects (RE), and Generalized Least Squares (GLS) estimation and controlling for COVID-19 dummy, the study finds that MFS transaction volume has a negative and statistically significant effect on deposit growth. This indicates that rising mobile financial activity slows the pace at which banks accumulate deposits. However, MFS positively and significantly affects both current and savings deposit levels, consistent with the financial inclusion channel through which mobile platforms channel funds into the formal banking system. The effect on total deposits and fixed deposits is statistically insignificant, indicating no direct substitution at the aggregate or long-term deposit level. Bank size and loan-to-deposit ratio are the most consistent determinants across all models. Non-performing loans negatively affect depositor confidence. The COVID-19 pandemic dampened deposit growth and total deposit accumulation but exerted limited influence on current and savings deposit levels. These findings suggest that MFS and traditional banking are complementary rather than substitutive, and that well-designed policy interventions can harness MFS-driven financial inclusion to strengthen rather than undermine the deposit base of commercial banks in Bangladesh.

In Bangladesh, women’s participation in small businesses is rapidly increasing. Although the lack of capital appears to be a significant barrier, banks play an important role in assisting women in obtaining small business loans. This study examines whether foreign banks operating in Bangladesh facilitate access to financing for women entrepreneurs. Using primary data collected from 100 women-owned small businesses in Dhaka, this study employs probit regression models to estimate the likelihood of obtaining small business loans from foreign banks. The results indicate that the accessibility of credit by women entrepreneurs is much less when they apply to foreign banks. The estimated marginal effects convey that the likelihood of securing financing on application to a foreign bank is expected to be lower by about 52 percentage points than domestic banks. The findings also reveal the significance of firm performance, managerial traits, and bank-firm relationships in determining access to credit. Overall, the findings suggest that foreign banks contribute only marginally to small business financing for women entrepreneurs in Bangladesh, implying the need for more targeted policy interventions.

This study investigates the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance in the Bangladeshi insurance sector, focusing on variables like board independence, female directors, audit committee size, leverage, and firm age. Using a sample of 42 insurance firms from 2017 to 2021, regression analysis is employed to assess these relationships. The findings show that board independence positively impacts performance, while audit committee size, leverage, and firm age have negative effects. Female directors exhibit a marginal but weak positive influence. This research contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence from a developing economy, where limited studies exist. It also offers insights into governance practices in emerging markets. The implications suggest that policymakers and corporate leaders in Bangladesh should prioritize enhancing board independence, managing leverage, and promoting gender diversity to improve performance. Future research could explore causal relationships and extend the analysis to other sectors or emerging markets, considering cultural and regulatory factors.

This study investigates the relationship between banks' corporate governance practice and its impact on financial sustainability. In this study, twenty-four private commercial banks' data have been analyzed from 2014 to 2023. Our investigations included a variety of econometric models, including cross-sectional GLS, fixed effect, random effect, and pooled OLS. In our study, we found that including women on the Board of directors plays a positive role in ensuring the financial sustainability of banking sectors in Bangladesh. Apart from that, increasing the participation of independent directors on the board of directors, expenditures in research and development in the best banking practices, and inflation positively increase banks' profitability, which translates into financial sustainability. This finding is consistent with the findings of the random effect model. On the other hand, whenever we used ROE as an explained variable, we found that both in pooled OLS  and random effect methods, board diversity, CEO tenure, firms audited by the big four firms, and inflation have a positive association with ROE. In the fixed effect method, we observed that audit committee size and ownership concentration play a vital role in explaining the financial sustainability of private commercial banks in Bangladesh. In the FGLS method, We found that CEO tenure, age of the firm, firms audited by the big four firms, presence of the independent director on the board, and inflations significantly impact the financial sustainability of commercial banks of Bangladesh.

This paper examines the exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) and its impact on home inflation in Bangladesh, particularly in the post-pandemic era. Examining important economic factors including the nominal exchange rate (NER), money supply (M2), industrial production (IP), and global commodity index (GCI) using monthly data from January 2002 to August 2023 helps one to grasp their combined influence on consumer price inflation (CPI). By means of Johansen cointegration and Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) approaches, the study reveals important short-term and long-term dynamics. Contrary to patterns in many emerging nations, the results show that changes in exchange rates have apparently little impact on home prices. Rather, changes in the money supply and world commodities prices mostly influence inflation; the latter becomes a major factor. The study also exposes an unexpected positive link between industrial production and CPI, implying complexity in Bangladesh's production-driven economic structure. Moreover, this investigation underlines how complex monetary expansion, external commodities shocks, and devaluation of money interact to shape inflationary pressures. These results offer legislators important new perspectives and support strong monetary policies and focused involvement in world commodities markets to help to lower inflation. This study clarifies ERPT in developing countries and provides direction on inflation control techniques for Bangladesh.

This paper examines the financial behaviors of university students in Bangladesh, including gender and academic level. The study, involving a sample size of 416 students, was done at the University of Dhaka using a standardized questionnaire to collect data on financial behaviors, including monthly expenditures, saving habits, and financial decision-making techniques. One-way ANOVA and independent samples t-tests indicated significant gender disparities; male students showed greater spending habits, whilst female students displayed a stronger propensity for savings. Academic levels influenced spending behaviors; first-year students had distinct financial patterns compared to seniors, however, savings habits were rather consistent across groups. The findings emphasize the necessity of encouraging structured saving strategies and financial awareness among university students. Identifying substantial demographic and behavioral insights in this study aids legislators and financial institutions in improving customized financial planning strategies for students. The research highlights the potential for future studies to incorporate private colleges and investigate the impact of socioeconomic issues and digital payment systems on student financial conduct that may mold Bangladesh's orderly and economical student demographic.

This study examines the relationship between audit quality and tax avoidance practices among listed banking companies in Bangladesh. The investigation utilized secondary data from the published annual reports of 36 listed banks on the Dhaka Stock Exchange, covering the period from 2018 to 2022. Therefore, the final dataset consists of 170 firm-year observations. In this research, audit quality was measured using four different variables: audit fees, audit tenure, the presence of a Big4 audit firm, and the disclosure of Key Audit Matters (KAM). The findings indicate that both the audit fees and KAM disclosure have a statistically significant positive relationship with tax avoidance. Conversely, while the presence of a Big4 auditor and audit tenure also demonstrate a positive relationship with tax avoidance, but this relation is not statistically significant. These findings suggest that rigorous auditing practices are essential for maintaining tax compliance within financial systems. Conducting audits with integrity, thoroughness, and adherence to professional standards can significantly impact tax compliance. Furthermore, the results highlight the need for tax authorities to identify and close the tax loopholes that companies exploit for tax avoidance. Promoting collaboration between regulatory bodies, tax authorities, and auditing firms is necessary to reduce tax avoidance activities by the firms. 

This paper investigates the factors that form bank risks in Bangladeshi state-owned banks. As a representation of bank risk, non-performing loans have been considered the dependent variable for this study. The relevant data have been extracted from six state-owned banks in Bangladesh from 2013 to 2022. The final dataset consists of 60 firm-year observations. The ordinary least square (OLS) regression with robust standard errors model is utilized to find the relationship of bank risks with determinants like asset size, efficiency, liquidity, profitability, leverage ratio, capital adequacy ratio, and loan to asset ratio. The findings say that bank size and loan-to-asset ratio have a highly significant positive relationship with bank risk, whereas profitability, capital adequacy ratio, and bank efficiency have a significant negative association with bank risk. On the other hand, leverage and liquidity are negatively and positively correlated with no statistical significance. To check the study's robustness, another proxy of bank risk, loan loss provision has been used and the results are almost similar. State-owned banks operate in every economy with a different mindset than the general commercial banks. Hence, policymakers should take necessary initiatives based on this study to bring down the high bank risks in state-owned banks in Bangladesh.

This study examines the Job facilities and the factors affecting employee satisfaction levels and how significantly they are correlated to each other. In the world of business research, one of the vital challenges is employee commitment toward the company. According to research, employee dedication and performance are strongly correlated with employee contentment. That is why employers and researchers are constantly looking for explanations for employee happiness. Several aspects affect employee satisfaction, some of which are obvious while others are not. This study explores how certain financial and non-financial variables relate to employee contentment. The survey has been done by a Likert scale questionnaire on a total of 200 employees from 10 Insurance companies in Bangladesh. According to this empirical study, a few non-financial variables, except salary, have a substantial relationship with employee satisfaction.

This study aims to examine online shopping behaviour on social media platforms. This study formulates a research model integrating trust with the flow theory and some basic constructs of the UTAUT. To analyze the data from an online survey involving 305 participants actively making online purchases through social media platforms. This study applied the Structural Equation Modeling-Artificial Neural Networks (SEM-ANN) technique. Incorporating statistically significant SEM findings, the ANN model was used to analyze linear and nonlinear interactions among proposed variables. The research findings demonstrate that flow emerges as the most significant determinant, succeeded by effort expectancy, social influence, and performance expectancy, in defining the concept of trust. However, the sensitivity analysis using ANN indicates that effort expectancy is the most important factor in establishing trust, followed by flow, social influence, and performance expectancy. The predictive power of intention to use is noteworthy in determining actual use behaviour, with trust and flow emerging as influential factors favourably impacting this intention.

The main objective of this study is to assess the impact of non-performing loans on bank lending behavior before and amid the COVID-19 pandemic. To do this research we have chosen fifteen private commercial banks in Bangladesh and data were taken from the year 2012 to the year 2021. Credit growth as a component of bank lending behavior was selected as the dependent variable and independent variables are non-performing loans to total loans, provision for loan losses to total loans, gross domestic product (GDP) rate, inflation rate, unemployment rate, total loans to total customer deposit, total equity to total asset, tier 1 ratio, growth of customer deposits, the dummy variables are used for incorporating the effect of covid-19. The paper suggests that NPL to total loan, provision for loan losses to total loan, total equity to total asset, and dummy variables (effect of covid-19 on NPL) are found statistically significant and inversely related to credit growth. Another three variables namely total loan to total deposit, deposit growth, and inflation variables are statistically significant and positively related to credit growth. All of the significant variables are consistent with general economic theory except the case for total equity to the total asset. To reduce non-performing loans, the banks may concentrate on improving corporate governance, maintaining strong loan review, thoroughly reviewing the KYC form, must ensure safety principles before approving a loan, collecting information from the CIB, accepting adequate collateral, examining the five C’s, name lending and connected party lending should be strictly prohibited which are quite related with behavioral and judgmental issues, would be a matter of further research.

The primary purpose of this research study is to reflect on financial anomalies, especially bank scams in Bangladesh. This study is an empirical approach developed through a well-structured Likert-scaled questionnaire to indicate different human behaviors, psychologies, and emotions that considerably impact financial incongruities in Bangladesh. The proposed model supported the structural equation model (SEM) and used SPSS Amos (Version 24) to build an attitudinal and behavioral model that reflects the complex relationships segment of this paper. Results show people try to rationalize irrational, unethical, and impertinent things and issues to achieve self-gain. Furthermore, corporations are treated as an entity for which they cannot be punished. Apart from this, human natures like greediness, dissatisfaction with what people have, societal status, possession and position, competition with peer groups for luxury, and tendency to imitate bad things are also responsible for bank scams in the Bangladeshi economy. Last but not least bad loan and default culture developed in the banking industry of Bangladesh only lacks execution laws, rules, and regulations.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between profitability measured with ROE along with EPS and several industry-specific factors such as underwriting risk, reinsurance dependence, solvency margin, leverage, liquidity risk, premium growth, size of the company, tangibility of assets as well as macroeconomic factors such as GDP growth, inflation, and stock market development of the general insurance companies of Bangladesh based on the sample of 7 insurance companies for the period of 2010-2019. For the analyses, several econometric models have been adopted to estimate the coefficients such as Pooled OLS, Cross-sectional GLS, Fixed-effect, Random-effect, and One-step GMM approaches. Moreover, diagnostic tests have also been conducted to examine the validity of the models such as model specification tests, heteroskedasticity tests, multicollinearity tests, autocorrelation tests, and unit-root tests. According to the computed coefficients, none of the macroeconomic variables utilized in the model affects profitability, except inflation, which positively affects ROE. Underwriting risk and size are found to negatively affect ROE but positively affect EPS. Of the two measures of profitability, only the EPS is affected by premium growth. Except for Fixed-effect, reinsurance dependence has a large positive influence on EPS and ROE. In contrast, liquidity and leverage have a positive impact on ROE. The tangibility of assets negatively affects both EPS and ROE where EPS is significant and ROE is insignificant only under fixed effect. Aside from premium growth, underwriting risk and solvency margin have a positive impact on EPS. Finally, using the GMM technique, we find that no lag variables are significant, indicating no profitability persistence. However, the model fits the data well for predicting EPS and ROE as profitability measures explaining 89.38 percent of EPS variation and 80.38 percent of ROE variation using Pooled OLS.

Sexually Transmitted Diseases/ Infections (STDs/STIs) are a major public health problem and a leading cause of morbidity among women in developing countries like Bangladesh. According to WHO, 2006, STDs/STIs ranks second as a cause of healthy life loss among women in the reproductive age group. This research has been conducted on examining knowledge awareness and prevention of STDs among women. It was conducted in two selected slums (Kathalbagan’s Lakkhi slum and Moghbazar slum) of Dhaka city in Bangladesh. This study was conducted through quantitative research and convenience sampling techniques. A structured questionnaire was developed to collect data on knowledge awareness and prevention of STDs/STIs. The study shows that 68.3% of respondents have knowledge about STDs, in this research majority of respondents are not aware of risk factors associated with STDs. This study examines that, for building awareness, majority of respondents preferred “Radio and Television” as the most important media that can build awareness for STDs among slum women. Special counseling is mandatory for the victims, along with sex education. Awareness about healthy sexual behaviors, a hygienic lifestyle, and instruction about the correct use of male condoms should be promoted to reduce the risk of health complications and greatly reduce the spread of STDs not in Bangladesh but also in developing countries.

Bank profitability plays a significant role in the growth and development of an emerging economy. The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of bank characteristics, industry concentration and macroeconomics variables on commercial bank profitability in Bangladesh from 2007-2017. Bank profitability is proxied by return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and net interest margin (NIM). The study is based on secondary data and Hausman test has been performed using STATA software in favor of fixed effect modeling. Panel regressions shows that cost efficiency has significant negative impact on ROA and NIM. The positive impact of loan to deposit ratio with ROA suggests that efficient fund management including investment and assessed expenditure should be emphasized. Bank size has significant negative impact on all the measures of profitability, which indicates that monopolistic competition will reduce banking profit. Credit risk has significant positive impacts on ROE. Industry concentration measured by CR3 is positively related with ROE and has significant negative relation with bank profitability (ROA). Among macroeconomic variables inflation has significant positive and bank spread has significant negative impact on ROE. The coefficients of all the macroeconomic variables have been found to be significantly related to bank profitability while measured by NIM. Our study recommends further research with other explanatory variables such as, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility (CSR) and deposit insurance to accelerate the model and construct the econometric model by using structural equation modeling, mediation effect modeling etc.

This research paper intends to evaluate an idea about bankers’ perceptions on green banking by getting a candid opinion from conventional banks’ bankers in Bangladesh based on a quality survey questionnaire covers relevant areas like benefits of green banking, superior officials who serve green banking services, taken eco-friendly initiatives, getting support from proper authorities, safeguarding environment pollution and rewards for adopting green banking. Considering the highest mean score of items in each group, this paper insights about green banking is environment-friendly banking, managers and officers are resourceful, emphasizes on recycling of left-over materials, keeping the environment pollution free, and performs to reduce resource wastages. This paper also finds that support from the government should be getting heightened priority to enhance its performance and area. So it can be easily presumed that green banking already put a great impact on a great portion of the banking industry in Bangladesh so far.

Investment seeking Bangladesh's economy is hungry for local and international finance for its infrastructure development. One Belt-One Road (OBOR) seems opened a golden door, not only for Bangladesh's economic reform but also created an opportunity for higher bilateral cooperation between China and Bangladesh. The geographical location of Bangladesh is playing a vital role despite being a small economy and territory in the region. Covering three sides of the Bangladeshi border, economically emerging state India has a sharp eye look on Bangladesh's strategies and policies more than any other time. The hostile looks of India (on China's OBOR initiative) are not an easy task for Bangladesh regarding Geopolitical & Economic strategies. Growing interests in Bangladesh among China and India appeared as a two-edged sword. However, India was the major trading partner of Bangladesh. However, China's trade with Bangladesh has increased manifold in recent years to surpass India from 2004 onwards. This is slowing down, and the change of economic relations between India and Bangladesh, coupled with strained and uncertain political relations, raises multiple concerns. Many dynamics have contributed to China's growing presence in Bangladesh compared to India's decline concerning trade and investment. India has lost out to China in many vital industries. While reviewing and assessing recent developments, the study also depicts a strategy to counter India's declining economic influence in Bangladesh.

Among the various online services provided by the government, e-tax system is one of the commonly used e-government platforms, which offers significant benefits to government and citizens by reducing costs, eliminate human errors, and reduce the turnaround time for processing income tax returns. Despite these plausible benefits, some reservations have been articulated regarding the continuance usage intention of e-tax system. Thus, we investigate the most critical factors of e-tax continuance usage in this paper. We developed an integrated theoretical model based on the technology continuance theory (TCT) extended with social influence and perceived risk. The proposed conceptual model was empirically validated with data collected from a sample of 345 e-tax service users in Bangladesh. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was employed to analyze the collected data. The study findings suggest that user satisfaction, perceived usefulness, and attitude have a direct impact on continuance usage intention where confirmation, ease of use and social influence have indirect influence on continuance usage intention of e-tax system. This paper discusses some contributions to theory and practice based on our findings

The study was conducted to examine the nature of vegetable price variation from farmers to different traders through different marketing channels and identified some factors that were causes for vegetable price variation. On the basis of vegetable trader, five marketing channels identified which responsible for transporting vegetables from farmer to consumer. This study pointed out that the maximum price variation chain is Farmer ? Wholesaler ? Agent ? Retailer ? Consumer. This study also explored that price variation has a positive relationship with the increase of trader’s number and several times price variation executed in retailers’ level. Sometimes new trader arrivals in retail level which depends on the nature of vegetable deterioration. The majority farmers and traders remarked that price variation is occurred due to high input cost, high transportation cost, and traditional marketing system

This paper attempts to reveal how several credit risk factors are affecting the profitability of commercial banks considering the econometric models estimated with Random effect, Fixed effect, Pooled OLS and Cross-sectional Generalized least square (GLS) method followed by dynamic panel data model estimated with one-step GMM (generalized methods of moments) approach to incorporate the issue of endogeneity, unobserved heterogeneity and profit persistence of data set collected from annual report of banks covering from year 2010 to 2019 in Bangladesh. We have also adopted several diagnostic checks such as Model specification test, test of heteroskedasticty, cross sectional dependence test followed by test of autocorrelation and unit root test to examine the validity of the models selected for this study. The first part of our empirical investigation of the estimated models considering all methods reveals that out of all the independent credit risk factors such as Total loans to total assets ratio, Total loans to equity ratio, NPL to total loans, NPL to Total equity ratio, Provision for loan losses to total equity, total equity to total assets ratio, Total loans to total deposits ratio and provision for loan losses to NPL ratio, only provision for loan losses to NPL ratio is significantly affecting the dependent variable measured with NIM (Net interest margin) ratio of banks under fixed effect method. The next part of our empirical results of estimated models considering same methods divulges that NPL to total loans ratio, NPL to Total equity ratio and Provision for loan losses to total equity are also significantly affecting the dependent variable measured with ROE (Return on equity) of banks. The third segment of our empirical findings of estimated models considering same approaches shows that only NPL to total loans ratio is statistically significant under all methods but the NPL to total equity ratio is significant under fixed effect and GLS method and Provision for loan losses to total equity is significant under GLS method only in explaining the changes in ROA (Return on equity) measuring profitability of banks. Further investigation reveals that the dynamic impact of the said credit risk factors on profitability measured with ROE of banks has been successfully adopted by one-step system GMM approach considering all conditions required for estimation.