Dhaka, Feb. 10 -- A new liquidity-feeding derivative called AR or assured repo comes from the recently-introduced special bonds as a godsend for the banks in persistent liquidity crunch, analysts and bankers say.

Early last month, the government started issuing special government bonds worth Tk 260 billion, meant for settling accumulated arrears to independent power producers and fertiliser suppliers, which also bear multiple financial gains.

Against the special bond-holding, the government has launched the AR facility, which is completely different in nature from other liquidity instruments as the maximum tenure of the special credit support is 182 days unlike 28 days for other existing liquidity supports.

Like other sovereign securit...