Bangladesh's private banks are joining government efforts to curb the flow of informal remittances and their officials have urged the UAE Central Bank to be tough on hawala traders.
"The UAE needs to act tough on hawala/hundi traders. In order to reduce the flow, we are joining our government's efforts to curb informal remittances at our end," Imran Rahman, deputy managing director of Brac Bank, told Gulf News yesterday.
"I think the UAE has legalised the hawala trade, which will have a negative impact on the legal remittance business. We are expanding our network we want funds to flow through more formal means.
"We are in the process of creating a countrywide awareness of the negative impact of hawala/hundi trade depriving the country of needed foreign, hard currency. We want remitters move to legal channels when sending their hard earned money. However, this can not be successful if they are allowed a free hand here," he said.
Brac Bank is part of Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (Brac), world's largest development organisation, based in Dhaka. It has helped millions of poor farmers by bringing them within the micro-credit system.
Brac Bank and Wall Street Exchange Centre last night held a meeting with representatives of non-resident Bangladeshis in Dubai as part of the awareness campaign.
Remittances from the UAE to Bangladesh surged by 18.41 per cent in the last fiscal year to June, reaching Dh1.62 billion, compared with Dh1.37 billion the previous year, according to Bangladesh Bank.
This translates to an average annual per capita remittance of Dh5,410, or Dh450.83 a month, by an estimated 300,000 Bangla-deshi expatriates, mostly labourers who remit money regularly to support their families.
The UAE is Bangladesh's second largest source of foreign remittance in the Middle East and third in the world after Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Brac Bank, incorporated in Bangladesh in 2001, has 18 branches and 300 offices across the country, serving more than 100,000 depositors. It has disbursed loans worth of 10 billion taka (Dh559.34 million) in the past three years as well as served 25,000 small and medium enterprises in trade financing.
"We have recently brought 300 of Brac's 1,800 offices in an online network that will help us to disburse remittances to the beneficiaries across the country," Rahman said.
"We are building a database of the beneficiaries across rural areas and giving them ATM cards, that works on point of sale (POS) machines. We are in the process of deploying POS machines, through which beneficiaries would be able to receive instant cash.
"Bangladesh Bank has recently given us the permission to facilitate remittance across 1,800 offices."
Gulf News
