Bangladesh Bank governor Md Mostakur Rahman has ordered stricter surveillance in import-export trade after a recent incident of over-invoicing was detected in a bank.

He gave this instruction in a meeting held with senior officials of the central bank on Wednesday (March 4), according to meeting sources.

At the meeting, the governor said that a recent incident of over-invoicing in a bank came to his attention. Later, the matter was verified through central bank officials and the truth of the complaint was found. When the concerned bank was also contacted, they confirmed the incident.

The governor ordered that strict steps should be taken to ensure that no over-invoicing or under-invoicing occurs through commercial banks. He urged to develop a more effective system to verify whether the declared price of the goods in the case of import-export is correct or not.

According to sources in the meeting, the governor ordered to further modernize the dashboard management currently in place for product price verification. Emphasis has been placed on developing the ability to verify product prices using automated and artificial intelligence (AI)-based methods.

He also called for creating an integrated and systematic framework so that banks can verify the accuracy of the import price declared by customers in their own systems.

An official present at the meeting said that currently, both Bangladesh Bank and commercial banks check the invoice prices of import and export on a random basis. However, from now on, banks need to be made more capable so that they can identify abnormal pricing themselves.

The source also said that although the incidents of over and under invoicing were relatively high in 2022 and 2023, they have decreased somewhat now.

Still, isolated incidents are coming to light, for which the governor has emphasized increasing technology-based surveillance to control them.

He also called for further decentralization of policies and supervision activities. According to sources in the meeting, instructions have also been given to quickly resolve the policy complications of the central bank regarding freelancers and egg exporters.