A Financial Stability Report for 2014 has been released by the Bangladesh Bank, the nation’s central bank, and a key outcome of it is that high non-performing loans (NPLs) eroded the earnings of banks last year. The report says that return on asset and return on equity, the two major indicators used to measure a bank’s profitability, decreased by 20 and 260 basis points to 0.7 and 8.1 percent respectively from a year ago. The rise in NPLs last year forced banks to set aside a major portion of their profits for provisioning, the Daily Star quot...