BANGLADESH’S central bank chief will meet the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a senior executive from global financial messaging service SWIFT next week to seek the recovery of about US$81 million stolen by hackers, officials in Dhaka said.

    Two Bangladesh Bank officials said the bank believed both the New York Fed and the SWIFT bore some responsibility for the February cyber heist. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

    Bangladesh Bank Governor Fazle Kabir, New York Fed President William Dudley and a SWIFT representative will meet in Basel, Switzerland around May 10, they and another person briefed by the central bank said. It was not immediately clear who would represent the SWIFT.

    Hackers tried to steal nearly US$1 billion from Bangladesh Bank’s settlement account at the New York Fed in early February by sending fraudulent transfer orders through the SWIFT.

    Of the 35 transfer orders sent, 30 were blocked. Four transfers to a Philippine bank for a total of US$81 million went through while a US$20 million transfer to a Sri Lankan company was reversed because the hackers mis-spelled the name of the firm.

    “There is a responsibility the New York Fed has to accept,” said one of the Bangladesh Bank officials. “If you stopped 30 transactions, why did you not stop the others?

    “The SWIFT also bears responsibility,” the official said. “It’s supposed to be a closed system. Now you have seen they have disclosed that there have been attacks previously on its software.”

    Last week, the SWIFT acknowledged that the Bangladesh Bank attack was not an isolated incident but one of several recent criminal schemes that aimed to take advantage of the global messaging platform used by about 11,000 financial institutions.

    The other Bangladesh Bank official said lawyers would be present at the meeting. Ajmalul Hussain, a Dhaka-based lawyer hired by the central bank to help it retrieve the funds, could not be reached for comment. His office said he was out of the country.

    It was not immediately known if Bangladesh Bank had retained any U.S. or European law firm to help recover the money.

    However, the bank said in an internal report in March it was considering “preparing the ground to make a legitimate claim for the loss of funds” against the New York Fed “through a legal process.” (SD-Agencies)