ICT exporters now can receive export money online
A maximum of $500 export earning per can be credited to an exporter’s online account in one transaction, according to a circular issued by the Bangladesh Bank on Monday
From now on, ICT companies that receive export orders through e-commerce websites will be able to receive export money online.
Following the guidelines of the Bangladesh Bank, a maximum of $500 export earning per can be credited to an exporter's online account in one transaction.
The central bank on Monday issued a circular to this effect.
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The circular said that the money can be received through international cards, online payment gateway service providers, digital wallets and other legitimate payment systems of the authorised institutions.
In this case, authorized dealers (ADs) shall observe due diligence for secured arrangements with foreign counterparts by which the payments so received need to be credited in their nostro accounts before making the fund available to customers. A nostro account refers to an account that a bank holds in a foreign currency in another bank.
Asked about this, Almas Kabir, president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), told The Business Standard, "We have been making such demands for a long time. Although the amount of export earnings received online is not high, ICT exports will increase in the future because of this initiative."
At present, the amount of exports in the ICT sector is around $1 billion, he mentioned, suggesting that in order to increase export earnings through e-commerce, regulations of foreign exchange transactions should be made easier.
In June 2018, the Bangladesh Bank issued a guideline entitled "Business-to-Consumer Export through Sales Orders Received on Internet", which stated that companies that receive export orders through e-commerce sites would be able to receive a maximum export earning of $5,000 per transaction through an authorised dealer or bank.
Now they have been given the opportunity to receive export income online as well as through banks.
Meanwhile, another circular issued by the Foreign Exchange Policy Department of the central bank said authorised dealers should no longer send hard copies of foreign exchange transaction reports to the central bank. From now on they may send the soft copies only.
Earlier, hard copies of such transactions had to be sent to the central bank regularly.
