আস্থার খতিয়ান · The Ledger of Trust

The Ledger of Trust, a thirty-year annotated data essay on Bangladesh's banking-sector non-performing loan (NPL) ratio.

A single, scroll-driven page that follows one number, the share of bank loans that is not being repaid, across three decades of Bangladesh's history: from the 41.1% peak of 1999, down through the reform decade to 6.1% in 2011, across a decade of flattered numbers, and up to the highest reported ratio in the world in 2025. It layers in capital adequacy (CRAR) and the IMF's broader distressed-asset estimates, sets Bangladesh against comparator economies that climbed down their own bad-loan mountains, and closes with an event ledger of twenty-one exhibits.

The people’s edition adds reader-facing tools: a geographic world map that shades every country by its bad-loan ratio (Bangladesh the single darkest, and war or crisis economies flagged yet lighter), a danger-map scatter (NPL vs CRAR) where Bangladesh sits alone in the negative-capital corner, the White Paper receipts (every figure attributed to the Dec 2024 committee), a family-share calculator, a "what could this money have built" converter (Padma Bridges, Dhaka Metro, remittance-years), and one-tap downloadable stat cards with a share bar.

Bangla-first, fully bilingual (বাংলা ⇄ English). The page loads in Bangla by default; a one-click toggle re-renders the entire essay into English, prose, chart labels, tooltips, and Bangla numerals, with no page reload. A plain-language primer, a glossary, per-section "story boxes" with worked examples, per-card source links, and a Sources & further reading section make it approachable for readers new to banking data. Every external link opens in a new tab.

Screenshot

assets/og-cover.png is the Bangla-first Open Graph / social-share image (1200×630, night-ledger green, gold NPL silhouette, giant ৩৫.৭%). The social/ folder also holds a seven-card Instagram/LinkedIn carousel; see social/README.md for the images and captions.

Live site

https://mafiatun.github.io/asthar-khotiyan/

Data and methodology

The essay tracks one indicator over time and reads it honestly, the definition of a non-performing loan in Bangladesh changed more than once across these decades, and each change moves the line for reasons unrelated to borrower behaviour in that year.

Indicators

• NPL ratio, gross classified loans as a share of total outstanding loans, all scheduled banks, year-end. The primary series.
• CRAR, sector Capital to Risk-Weighted Assets Ratio (percent). The capital cushion; plotted quarterly through the 2024–25 decline, with a Basel III reference at the 10% regulatory minimum.
• Distressed estimates, the IMF's and Bangladesh Bank's broader measures of actual distressed assets (defaulted + rescheduled + written-off), shown against the narrower reported classified stock.

The two classification-rule breaks

• 2012, Bangladesh Bank adopted stricter, internationally aligned classification rules; the reported ratio jumped as previously hidden distress was recognised.
• 2025, loans overdue beyond 90 days were again classified as non-performing (replacing the interim 180-day practice), and long-deferred distress was booked at once. Both breaks affect comparability across periods.

Sources

Compiled from public statistics and reporting:

• Bangladesh Bank, annual reports, quarterly banking statistics, Financial Stability Reports (NPL, CRAR, distressed-asset measures).
• IMF, staff assessments and the distressed-asset estimate.
• World Bank, bank NPL-to-total-loans indicator (cross-check).
• ADB, Asian NPL Watch and the Asian bank average.
• RBI (India), SBP (Pakistan), CBSL (Sri Lanka), Bank Indonesia / OJK (Indonesia), NRB (Nepal), comparator-country trajectories.

Danger-map (cross-country CRAR/NPL) and White Paper receipts:

• SBP H1CY25 Mid-Year Performance Review (Pakistan CAR).
• CBSL Financial Stability Review 2025 (Sri Lanka).
• OJK Board of Commissioners press release, Sep 2025 (Indonesia).
• IMF Article IV 2025 (Vietnam) and IMF ECF 6th Review, Apr 2025 (Nepal).
• NRB provisional financial indicators, mid-Aug 2025 (Nepal CAR).
• BSP banking indicators via the Philippine News Agency (Philippines).
• White Paper on the Bangladesh economy (committee chaired by Dr. Debapriya Bhattacharya, submitted 1 Dec 2024), coverage: The Daily Star, The Business Standard, bdnews24, Prothom Alo, Dhaka Tribune.

Cross-country values between anchor years are linearly connected and definitions vary across regimes, so the comparison panels are best read for shape rather than decimal precision. Era shading marks who held office; it implies no causal claim.

Repository structure

asthar-khotiyan/
├── index.html          # Markup only
├── css/
│   └── styles.css      # All styles
├── js/
│   ├── data.js         # Every data array (SERIES, QPEAK, CRAR, DIST, ERAS,
│   │                   #   EVENTS, DISC_POS, SNAP, ASIA_AVG, COMP) + EVENT_SOURCES
│   │                   #   and REFERENCES, loaded first
│   ├── data-peoples.js # Peoples-edition data (Q2026, DANGER_MAP, RECEIPT,
│   │                   #   CONVERTER_UNITS), loaded after data.js
│   ├── i18n.js         # বাংলা⇄English engine + full translation tables + toggle
│   ├── story.js        # Shared helpers, reading-progress bar, scrollytelling
│   ├── chart.js        # Explore chart + overlay layers + figures counters
│   ├── compare.js      # Snapshot bars + comparator small multiples
│   ├── ledger.js       # Event ledger cards + click-to-chart + Sources list
│   ├── danger-map.js   # NPL vs CRAR scatter (reads data-peoples.js)
│   ├── widgets.js      # Receipt, family share, converter, share bar, stat cards
│   ├── worldmap-data.js# World country outlines (Natural Earth 110m, projected)
│   └── world-map.js    # Geographic NPL choropleth + war markers + view toggle
├── assets/
│   ├── favicon.svg     # A red disc on bottle green
│   └── og-cover.png    # 1200×630 Bangla-first social-share image (night-ledger)
├── README.md
├── LICENSE
├── CITATION.cff
└── .gitignore

Scripts are vanilla JavaScript with no framework and no build step. Load order matters, data.js defines the globals the other scripts read, so it must load first.

Local development

No build step. Either:

• Open index.html directly in a browser, or

• Serve the folder (recommended, so relative paths behave exactly as on Pages):

  python -m http.server 8000
  # then visit http://localhost:8000

Roadmap

• World Bank Z-score layer, a bank-stability (distance-to-default) overlay.
• Exact annual comparator series, replace the anchor-year interpolation in the small multiples with full annual data where regulators publish it.
• PNG export for social, one-click export of the chart for sharing.

Data disclaimer

This is an independent data essay. Figures are compiled from public sources (Bangladesh Bank, IMF, World Bank, ADB, and national regulators) and cited public reporting. Classification-rule changes in 2012 and 2025 affect comparability across periods, as noted above. This work is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, any of the institutions named. Corrections and source suggestions are welcome.

Credit

Compiled and written by Mafizul Islam, linkedin.com/in/mafizul

Code is released under the MIT License; the data compilation is released under CC BY 4.0. See LICENSE and CITATION.cff.