The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Standard Chartered Bank, one of the largest foreign banks in Bangladesh, has launched its activities at the new country head office situated at Gulshan Avenue in the city.

Dr Salehuddin Ahmed, Governor of Bangladesh Bank and Lord Adair Turner, Non-Executive Director of Standard Chartered PLC jointly inaugurated the new country head office of Standard Chartered Bank yesterday.

Osman Morad, Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank, Bangladesh and senior officials of the bank, among others, were present on the occasion.

The new office reiterates Standard Chartered Bank's commitment in Bangladesh and their confidence in the future of the country, says a press release.

The new head office has 110,000 square feet of space across seven floors that accommodate nearly 700 staff members. Standard Chartered Bank has also introduced in the new head office their largest branch in the country with 16 counters, separate suites for priority credit cards and multiple ATM machines. Despite being a state-of-the-art building that match global standards, Standard Chartered's new country head office is also very environment friendly-it uses only energy efficient lights and printers that have been configured to default both side usage to reduce total paper usage. Even the centrally chilled water air conditioning system in this office is approximately 30 per cent more efficient than conventional systems to save energy.

Sensitive locations in the new head office such as data centre are fire protected using gas flooding systems and has been especially constructed to resist fires for up to 2 hours in case of an emergency.

The entire building can run at full capacity for three days with available power backup facility and is designed to withstand earthquakes with a magnitude of up to 7 in the Richter scale.

The new country head office deploys the latest technologies available for work place safety with sprinklers, fire escapes, fire hydrants, heat detectors, fire alarms, fire-resistant furnishers and a closed-circuit television (CCTV) system that monitor internal as well as external areas of the building.