Prime Bank to open exchange houses in 3 UK cities
Sunday, 25 July 2010
FE Report
Prime Bank is set to inaugurate its own exchange houses in three UK cities on the first week of August, thus becoming the latest Bangladeshi bank to set its permanent remittance base in Britain.
"Our first exchange house in UK will be inaugurated in London on August 2", Prime Bank Managing Director M Ehsanul Haque said at a press conference in the city Saturday.
"It would be followed by the launching of the Birmingham operation on August 3, while the Manchester exchange house would be inaugurated on the very next day", he added.
The Prime Bank officials said that they are looking to tap further the country's booming remittance market by setting its eye on Britain- which is the forth largest and one of the oldest sources of foreign remittance for Bangladesh.
The leading private financier already has an exchange house in Singapore which is operational since 2006.
"Around 800 thousand Bangladeshis are currently residing in the UK, the bulk of which are based in London, Birmingham and Manchester where we are going to set up our own subsidiary exchange companies", Ehsanul said while speaking at the launching of Prime Bank remittance software called 'Remit Fast' at a city hotel.
The in-house built software would be put in use for the first time in Prime Bank's UK exchange houses and thereafter would be installed in bank's other exchange houses as well.
"The state-of-the-art software has been developed with our very own manpower and technical capacity and it features all the necessary features to ensure quick and secured delivery of remittances", Ehsanul said.
"The fully integrated centralized remittance management system is scalable to handle 'Multi Collection Agent' and 'Multi Delivery Agent' and is set up parameterized to handle multiple countries and multiple currencies", said the bank's Head of IT Md. Iqbal Hossain.
Prime Bank officials also informed that they are planning to set up one more exchange company in Canada by the end of this year while a number of such exchange houses are also in the pipeline.
Remittance flow to Bangladesh has reached US$ 10.97 billion in 2009/10, surging by 13.25 percent from the previous fiscal. Consequently, a number of local commercial banks have opted to set up their own exchange houses abroad to tap this growing market segment.
"Currently, around half a billion US Dollar remittance are channeled each year through our bank sources, which we hope, would see a significant boost by rolling our overseas network further" the Prime Bank Managing Director said.
Prime Bank is set to inaugurate its own exchange houses in three UK cities on the first week of August, thus becoming the latest Bangladeshi bank to set its permanent remittance base in Britain.
"Our first exchange house in UK will be inaugurated in London on August 2", Prime Bank Managing Director M Ehsanul Haque said at a press conference in the city Saturday.
"It would be followed by the launching of the Birmingham operation on August 3, while the Manchester exchange house would be inaugurated on the very next day", he added.
The Prime Bank officials said that they are looking to tap further the country's booming remittance market by setting its eye on Britain- which is the forth largest and one of the oldest sources of foreign remittance for Bangladesh.
The leading private financier already has an exchange house in Singapore which is operational since 2006.
"Around 800 thousand Bangladeshis are currently residing in the UK, the bulk of which are based in London, Birmingham and Manchester where we are going to set up our own subsidiary exchange companies", Ehsanul said while speaking at the launching of Prime Bank remittance software called 'Remit Fast' at a city hotel.
The in-house built software would be put in use for the first time in Prime Bank's UK exchange houses and thereafter would be installed in bank's other exchange houses as well.
"The state-of-the-art software has been developed with our very own manpower and technical capacity and it features all the necessary features to ensure quick and secured delivery of remittances", Ehsanul said.
"The fully integrated centralized remittance management system is scalable to handle 'Multi Collection Agent' and 'Multi Delivery Agent' and is set up parameterized to handle multiple countries and multiple currencies", said the bank's Head of IT Md. Iqbal Hossain.
Prime Bank officials also informed that they are planning to set up one more exchange company in Canada by the end of this year while a number of such exchange houses are also in the pipeline.
Remittance flow to Bangladesh has reached US$ 10.97 billion in 2009/10, surging by 13.25 percent from the previous fiscal. Consequently, a number of local commercial banks have opted to set up their own exchange houses abroad to tap this growing market segment.
"Currently, around half a billion US Dollar remittance are channeled each year through our bank sources, which we hope, would see a significant boost by rolling our overseas network further" the Prime Bank Managing Director said.