The central bank has abolished the security deposit and minimum balance requirement for small exchange houses to reduce the pressure on large exchange houses (aggregators) to collect remittance dollars. As a result, small exchange houses will now be able to sell remittance dollars directly to any bank.

Earlier, small exchange houses had to maintain a security deposit of $10,000 and a minimum balance in their Non-Resident Foreign Currency (NRFC) account to sell remittances to any bank.

The Foreign Exchange Policy Department of Bangladesh Bank has issued a circular in this regard. This directive will come into effect from February 1.

The circular states that the security deposit and minimum balance requirement for the ‘pre-fund’ method has been withdrawn. Banks have been directed to contact their foreign institutions with which they have transaction agreements under this system so that the security deposit maintained in the NRFC account can be reconciled by paying the remittance.

The new circular also reduces the minimum balance requirement in the non-resident taka (NRT) account of aggregator exchange houses. Aggregator exchange houses generally sell remittance dollars in the ‘post-fund’ process, and the relevant bank receives the remittance dollars from the exchange houses after paying the money as per the arrangement.

It said that large exchange houses sell remittance dollars in the ‘post-fund’ method. In this method, the minimum balance in the non-resident taka account has been fixed at Tk 2 million instead of the equivalent of Tk 25,000. The security deposit requirement in the NRFC account will remain unchanged under this method.