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managing directors of banks, have recently decided to collect remittances from foreign exchange houses at Tk 107 per USD.

A managing director of a bank, however, says that some banks have offered more than the ceiling. “So, some banks have managed to receive more remittances than others.”

Between July and January, expatriate Bangladeshis sent remittances amounting to $12.45 billion, up 4.25 per cent year-on-year.

However, the flow of remittance is still lower than expected given that a record number of Bangladeshis went abroad in 2022 in search of jobs.

More than 11.35 lakh Bangladeshis left the country for jobs abroad last year, the highest in history, data from the Bureau of Manpower Employment and Training showed.

Still, the remittance has not picked up proportionately as workers reportedly send half of their money to the beneficiaries back home using informal channels owing to the better rates of the US dollar offered by hundi operators.

Experts say unofficial channels are attractive to migrant workers since they can send money easily and receive better rates. The exchange rate gap between the formal and informal channels is also to blame.

With a view to encouraging remittance through legal channels, the government hiked the rate of incentives by 0.5 percentage points to 2.5 per cent in January last year.

The government also withdrew the mandatory provisions for the submission of earning documents of the remitters in the case of availing cash incentives against remittances exceeding the amount of $5,000.