Five companies that trade on the Dhaka Stock Exchange today are scheduled to cease existing on July 1. Bangladesh Bank’s board approved their liquidation on May 12. Between them, they hold Tk 10,955 crore in loans, of which Tk 10,705 crore are defaulted — a 97.7% non-performing rate that has no parallel in the country’s listed financial sector. The government has pledged Tk 5,000 crore to refund depositors. The gap between that pledge and what is actually owed is Tk 5,600 crore.
That is the arithmetic. Now consider that every one of these five — FAS Finance, Fareast Finance, Aviva Finance, Peoples Leasing, and International Leasing — still has shareholders holding paper that clears on DSE. Some of those shareholders bought as recently as March, when these same names dominated the exchange’s top gainers list.
The question is not whether this cleanup was needed. The question is who absorbs the loss, and what happens to the twenty other weak NBFIs sitting in the queue behind these five.
What the Board Actually Approved
The Bangladesh Bank Board of Directors, chaired by Governor Md Mostaqur Rahman, granted preliminary approval on May 12 to liquidate the five institutions under the Bank Resolution Act 2026. The process begins July 1. This is the first time Bangladesh has formally shut down listed financial institutions at this scale.
The decision did not arrive without warning. In May 2025, the previous administration sent letters to twenty weak NBFIs asking why their licences should not be cancelled. Nine were eventually flagged for liquidation. That list was reduced to six after BIFC, GSP Finance, and Prime Finance secured extensions. The five now being wound up are the most distressed survivors of that screening — the institutions whose default rates climbed past 90% and stayed there.
International Leasing alone carries Tk 4,110 crore in loans, of which Tk 4,087 crore are non-performing. That is 99.4% default. Aviva Finance has Tk 2,928 crore in NPLs against Tk 3,116 crore disbursed. FAS Finance has classified its entire Tk 1,810 crore book as defaulted. There is nothing salvageable here — only legal mechanics.
The Funding Gap That Quietly Reframes Everything
The Finance Ministry has committed Tk 5,000 crore for depositor refunds, to be released in two phases. Individual depositors with claims below Tk 10 lakh get priority — full principal first, institutional depositors and shareholders behind them.
Then there is the Tk 5,600 crore funding gap that emerged on May 14, three days after the announcement. TBS News reported it. Depositors began staging protests the same week. Under the Deposit Protection Act, formal coverage extends only to a fraction of claims, and only once an institution is formally liquidated. The gap is not a forecasting problem. It is a real number sitting between what the government has promised and what it owes.
The fiscal context matters. Bangladesh’s sovereign outlook was just cut to negative by Fitch on May 14. The Tk 5,000 crore is being funded against that backdrop. Whether the second phase arrives on schedule will tell investors more about depositor protection than any May 13 press release ever could.
The Stock Story Is Already Written, But Not Yet Priced
All five are listed. All five trade as penny stocks. In October 2025, four of them were quoted in the Tk 1.10–1.30 range. International Leasing surged 100% to Tk 3.20 in March 2026 — placing it among the DSE’s top gainers in a month where eight troubled NBFIs rebounded 145–224% on pure speculation that liquidation would be reversed.
It was not reversed. April 2 brought a 27% weekly decline across the names. The May 13 announcement triggered another sell-off. And BSEC — the securities regulator — has been asking since February for a compensation package for shareholders before delisting. Bangladesh Bank, the banking regulator running the liquidation, places shareholders last in the recovery queue. Two regulators, two priorities, one set of retail investors caught between them.
What This Means for the Other Twenty
Bangladesh Bank’s own Financial Stability Report 2024 classified twenty-one of thirty-five NBFIs as weak. Twenty carry default rates above 50%. Only nine are sound. The five being liquidated are the first tranche — the floor of the distribution, not the median.
If the July 1 liquidation proceeds cleanly, depositors are made whole, and DSE absorbs the delistings without sector contagion, then this is the cleansing event the financial sector needed. If the funding gap forces a partial refund, or the next NBFI is dragged into the same process within months, the Z-category banking shock of early May starts looking like a preview rather than a one-off.
Six weeks remain until July 1. The market has that long to decide which story it believes — and which of the remaining twenty weak NBFIs it is willing to keep underwriting at penny-stock prices in the meantime.