A New Dimension

By Asaduzzaman

The first day of the New Year saw the launch of Dhaka Bank Limited’s new service wing, dubbed Antorik. The program is meant to bring in a new dimension to the humanitarian aspect of banking by providing special care for the certain segments of people such as senior citizens, the physically challenged and also pregnant women. Syed Mahbubur Rahman, CEO & Managing Director of Dhaka Bank Limited, an advocate of human banking, initially has the idea in he visited Universal Studios where a host of personal care services are opened for various segments of people. However, things were only set in motion after Khandaker Anwar Ehtesham, Head of the Bank’s Communications & Branding Division, observed an incident in a super market where a pregnant woman had to stand in long line to avail a service. This gave him the idea of providing special banking services for this segment of people and after witnessing this, he notified his CEO regarding his idea of creating a new service wing for people with special needs and thus, Antorik was born.

When asked about Antorik, Syed Mahbubur Rahman elaborates, “There exists a group of challenged people in this society and what we wanted to do was make banking easy for these individuals. These services are not available in other industries as of yet in our country but if we look at the situation abroad you’ll see facilities like separate car parks for the physically handicapped which enable them to avail special services. Why shouldn’t these services be available here as well? When Khandaker Anwar Ehtesham came to me with his idea we decided to start it in our bank and call it Antorik.”
Explaining how the services will operate he said, “We’ve designed Antorik for the senior citizens, women in labor and people with physical difficulties. For example, a person who has difficulty walking will not be required to wait queues, rather we will have a special services ready for them. At Dhaka Bank, we believe we have a responsibility to serve the society. This includes providing the appropriate facilities for the financial needs of this segment of people.”

However, now that Antorik is operational, it does not mean that their work is done. Dhaka Bank’s CEO stresses on the need to keep improving the organization, “We need to keep on innovating in this particular area so we can render better services for them. Our ultimate objective is to take our services to the doorsteps of the customers. In developed countries they have concentrated on automation and personalized services. However, Antorik is a step in the right direction for the progression of our nation.”

Khandaker Anwar Ehtesham, who came up with the concept for Antorik said, “The idea is to carter to the needs of those groups of challenged people who would find regular banking quite difficult. From the existing manpower at our branches, a designated officer will have a separate desk where he/she will serve the needs of those would not be able to stand in tedious lines.”