The New Nation - Internet Edition

ACCORDING to central bank statistics, remittance inflow in the first quarter of the current fiscal year jumped by 16 per cent to $1,542 million from $1,330 million in the same period of the last fiscal year. The money inflow went up to $592 million in September from $471 million in August ahead of the holy Eid as reported by media recently quoting bank officials as saying that before festival remittance inflows usually goes up and there has been no exception this year. Bangladesh received about $ 6 billion remittance in the last fiscal year, which cushioned the shock of the country's more than $3.3 billion trade deficit. The Bangladesh Bank has also approved guidelines for drawing arrangements between banks operating in the country and exchange houses abroad. Under the guidelines, exchange houses are not allowed to appoint sub-agents to collect remittances.

Bangladesh Bank took the decision as the London-based First Solution Money Exchange Company collected deposits through sub-agents for remittance to Bangladesh and cheated the remitters of 1.7 million pound sterling. An exchange house operating in the USA should remit at least $3 million a year, from the UK 2 million pound sterling, from Italy 2 million euros, from Canada $2.5 million, $ 3 million from any of the Middle East countries where the concentration of Bangladeshi citizens is high and $1.5 million from other countries including some Middle Eastern countries having lower concentration. As decided, the houses are not allowed to make any promotional public statement like 'approved by the Bangladesh Bank' and have to send all remittance statements to the local banks. The house must transfer the amount within 24 hours of the money deposited for remittance to what is called the 'nostro account', an account open by a bank in Bangladesh in foreign country.

Banks operating in Bangladesh will collect information and papers about an exchange house before approaching the Bangladesh Bank for its approval to do business with it. The information or papers include copy of its licence, report from a reputed credit-rating agency, financial statements for the past three years, profile of its directors, articles and memorandum of association, among others. Positive report from the respective Bangladesh embassy also has to be collected by the banks and submitted to the central bank for obtaining the drawing-arrangement approval. However, the rise in remittance inflow meets the deficit whatever it is in trade in these difficult days of global competition when hardly there is any consideration by the major players of world economy. The huge remittance inflow is due to streamlining of the banking arrangement done with great efforts by the last elected government in recent years and the money now should be properly invested for the country's future development and poverty alleviation.