Plan underway to open more exchange houses abroad

The government plans to set up branches/exchange houses of scheduled banks soon in some countries having potential sources of remittances.
The objective of the move is to help the Bangladeshi migrants send their hard-earned foreign currencies smoothly.
"France, Greece, Mauritius, Egypt, Libya and Lebanon are going to be vital sources of remittance earnings for Bangladesh. We recently discussed the issue to establish more banks' branches/legal agencies in those countries, if necessary, for sending remittance by the Bangladeshi expatriates," a senior official of the finance ministry said.
He added: "We have also discussed ways to increase banks' branches/agents/collection points to facilitate remittance back home free of cost by migrants."
He, however, said a plan is well underway to set up/ increase agents/collection points in those countries as early as possible.
Industry insiders said some state-run exchange houses abroad incur loss every year. For this, opening of new exchange houses abroad through approval of the central bank will be loss-making branches, they added.
"The government and Bangladesh Bank (BB) have taken various regulatory and institutional measures to promote remittances through formal channel, which successfully contributed to boost the inflow of remittances. The Ministry of Expatriates' Welfare and Overseas Employment has launched various projects under the Annual Development Programme of FY 2016-17," according to the BB data.
"To speed up remittance inflow and distribution, the approval mechanism of drawing arrangements among Bangladeshi banks and foreign exchange houses has been simplified. Presently, 1,142 drawing arrangements are active and they are playing an important role in bringing remittance to Bangladesh, the data showed.
Establishment of exchange houses/branch offices abroad by local banks has been approved. A total of 34 exchange houses/branch offices/representative offices of different local banks are operating their programmes in different countries (UK, USA, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Greece, Italy, Canada, Oman and Maldives), according to the data.
Presently, France, Lebanon, Mauritius and Greece were the 13th, 14th, 20th and 23rd largest sources of remittance among 30 nations in FY '18, according to the BB data.
Besides, remittance earnings from Egypt and Libya by Bangladeshi overseas workers have also increased in recent times.
An estimated 10 million Bangladeshi workers are employed abroad and they remit $15 billion, on an average, a year to help boost the foreign currency reserve.
The country received $14981.69 million in remittance in the fiscal year (FY) 2017-18.
Presently, Bangladeshi overseas workers in Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates have been suffering setbacks when remitting their hard-earned money due to inadequate number of agent points in their destination countries.
The regulator is working sincerely to take required steps to set up an adequate number of agent points in those major sources of remittance-earning countries for Bangladesh.

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