Bhutan National Bank Limited
Bhutan National Bank Limited (BNB) was established on 6th January 1997.
Prior to its establishment, it was known as Unit Trust of Bhutan (UTB), an undertaking of the government that functioned as a subsidiary of RICB with an initial capital of Nu.2.5 million. The trust was conferred independent financial institution status by the government on 1st January 1992. The Unit Trust of Bhutan was converted into a commercial bank with technical assistance from Asian Development Bank in 1995.
The first IPO of BNB was offered to the public in 1996, which made the bank the only financial institution with public ownership of a significant 28.58%. In 1997, Government divested its equity of 40% to ADB and Citibank.
BNB was the first bank to be computerized and launched the banking software called Micro Banker in 1996 and in January 2003 upgraded to new banking software called Flexcube. BNB was also the first bank in the country to launch the ATM services in 2004.
Following the launch of ATM services, the bank also introduced debit Point of Sale terminals in 2007 and in 2008, upgraded its banking software from Flexcube 4.5 to Flexcube corporate 7.3. In order to provide better and faster services to clients, SMS and Internet Banking were launch in 2009. On 12th April 2011, BNB launched Recurring Deposit and Rupee Denominated Prepaid card. The Bhutan Financial Switch (BFS) which was inaugurated by the Prime Minister of Bhutan was done so in 2011 followed by the very well received Piggy Bank Accounts for children aged 6 -18 in 2012. Later in the same year, the bank also launched B-Wallet services.
More recently in 2013, the bank has further upgraded its IT systems to Oracle 12.
BNB hold 13.85% equity share in FITI.