Bankers seek commission waiver for small remitters

Top 20 remittance-recipient banks proposed to meet their commission on maximum US$200 inward remittance from their own CSR funds instead of deducting it from the remitter's money.
Such waiver of commission on small amounts of remittance, they think, will encourage remitters to send their money home through proper channel and thus boost the slow inflow of remittances.           
The recommendation was made at a view-exchange meeting with the officials of Bangladesh Bank (BB) in the central bank headquarters in Dhaka Sunday with BB Deputy Governor SK Sur Chowdhury in the chair.
The chief executive officers (CEOs) and managing directors (MDs) of the commercial banks believe that such initiative for adjusting their commission against their CSR (corporate social responsibility) expenditure will help boost the flow of inward remittances.
The banks also recommended taking initiatives to build mass awareness, both at home and abroad, for sending expatriates' hard-earned money through legal channels instead of the illegal "hundi" system.
"We may consider the recommendations after scrutinising the possible impact of the proposed measures on the banking sector," Mr. Sur Chowdhury told the FE after the meeting.
At the meeting, the central bank advised the bankers to expedite the flow of inward remittances by setting up more drawing arrangements with overseas exchange houses and banks taking advantages of BB's recent policy relaxation.
Under the relaxation, the amount of security deposit for drawing arrangement came down to US$10,000 from $25,000 earlier while security deposit for Non-Resident Taka (NRT) account got trimmed down to Tk 0.20 million from Tk 0.50 million earlier.
"We've advised the bankers to increase the flow of inward remittances through improving their efficiencies," the deputy governor said while replying to a query.
He also said the BB had already taken different measures to expedite the inflow of remittances from different parts of the world.
The meeting discussed prominently issues like the latest trend in inward remittance, demand-supply situation on the US dollar and the exchange rate of the Bangladesh Taka (BDT) against the greenback on the open market, generally known as kerb market.
Besides, leaks in channeling small-sized remittances through non-bank channels came up for discussion, according to BB officials.
All banks have already set up 1140 drawing arrangements with 136 overseas exchange houses and banks for collection of remittances from different parts of the world, they added.
Besides, application-programming interface has already been established through installing software with 39 overseas exchange houses and banks for pulling remittances from different countries.
On the other hand, a research group of the central bank is now working to sort out various issues including the flow of inward remittances using illegal channel.
"We're now collecting information relating to inward remittances from different parts of the country," a member of the research group told the FE.
He also said two teams are going to visit Malaysia, Singapore, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) shortly as part of the hunt.
In a modest improvement the flow of inward remittances crossed US$1.0 billion again in January, after a downturn for consecutive two months, as a result of different initiatives taken by authorities concerned to check remittance inflow through illegal 'hundi' conduit.
The remittances from Bangladeshi nationals working abroad were estimated at $1.01 billion in January last, up by $50.71 million from previous month's amount. In December 2016, the remittance was $958.73 million. It was $951.37 million in November last year.
The flow of inward remittances was $1.15 billion in January 2016.
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