Central Bank Pushes for Direct Banking Links to Capture More Remittances from Maldives Workers
The initiative aims to reduce transfer costs, expand formal remittance channels and address currency-conversion challenges faced by Bangladeshi workers.
Bangladesh Bank is actively exploring ways to place Bangladeshi banks inside the Maldives so that the large number of migrant workers there can send money home more easily and through official routes. The initiative reflects a wider effort to bring a greater share of overseas earnings into formal banking channels at a time when every additional dollar of remittance helps support the country's external accounts.
The central bank's governor has written to the head of the Maldives Monetary Authority requesting cooperation on the idea of opening branches of Bangladeshi institutions. Officials describe the step as a practical response to the difficulties faced by more than 100,000 Bangladeshi nationals working across the islands. Many of these workers currently struggle with limited formal options, high conversion costs, and the complications created by local currency restrictions. Informal networks remain common, yet they offer less security and often leave workers with lower net amounts reaching their families.
Several private Bangladeshi banks have already looked into the commercial and regulatory feasibility of establishing a presence in the Maldives. Studies completed by institutions such as BRAC Bank and National Bank suggest that a physical or correspondent footprint could be workable once local approvals are secured. Bangladesh Bank has also consulted the country's high commission in the Maldives to map the legal and operational hurdles that would need to be cleared.
In parallel with the branch proposal, the central bank has put forward complementary settlement ideas. One centres on using the Maldivian rufiyaa under an arrangement linked to the Asian Clearing Union, so that money sent from the islands can be paid out in taka through authorised dealers in Bangladesh. Another contemplates allowing certain travel-related payments in rufiyaa while Bangladeshi banks issue matching taka cards whose transactions are settled under an agreed framework. A third option under discussion is a bilateral currency-swap facility that could ease the periodic dollar shortages that complicate transfers.
These ideas arrive against a backdrop of weaker recorded flows from the Maldives in the most recent full fiscal year. Although the destination remains important for Bangladeshi labour, official remittance totals declined compared with the previous year. Workers have cited the expense of buying foreign currency on the open market and the fees charged by existing money-transfer services as reasons for the drop. Strengthening formal channels is therefore seen as both a service to the workers and a way to recover some of the earnings that currently bypass the regulated system.
For households in Bangladesh the difference is immediate. Reliable, lower-cost transfers mean more of a worker's wage arrives for school fees, medical bills, or small investments. On a national scale, higher formal inflows from a single labour market add to the broader remittance performance that has already helped rebuild foreign-exchange reserves to levels covering several months of imports. The same inflows also support the taka in the interbank market and reduce pressure on the central bank's own reserves.
Implementation will not be automatic. Any branch or settlement mechanism requires clearance from regulators in both countries, compliance with anti-money-laundering rules, and practical arrangements for liquidity and currency conversion. Officials on both sides are expected to continue technical talks to test which combination of branches, clearing arrangements, and possible swap lines offers the best balance of speed, cost, and safety.
If the discussions advance, the Maldives could become one of the first places where Bangladeshi banks operate directly to serve their own diaspora. Success there would set a template for other destinations where large numbers of Bangladeshi workers face similar barriers. For now, the central bank's outreach signals a clear preference for formal, transparent channels that protect both the workers who earn the money and the wider economy that relies on it.