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MasterCard launches new remittance services in Bangladesh

Tuesday 19 April 2016 14:04 CET | News

MasterCard has partnered with Western Union, a financial services company, bKash, a financial services provider, and BRAC bank, a commercial bank financing SMEs, to launch a new international remittance service in Bangladesh.

The service will allow bKash`s customer base to use mobile phones to receive remittances that come from outside the country directly into their bKash accounts, pymnts.com reports.

The citizens of Bangladesh, the eighth largest receiver of international remittances globally, can send money using mobile devices or physical pickup of cash remittances at Western Union locations. Users registered with bKash can gather the remittances sent from any location and channel served by Western Union 24/7.

The typical remittance might charge a fee of between 7% to 8% but the new remittance service through MasterCard and its partners charges a fee of about 1.85%. The individual transactions have a cap of BDT 35,000 (USD 500), up to roughly BDT 11,500 (USD 1,500) over five transactions per customer per day, or monthly caps of BDT 150,000 (USD 1,900) across 20 transactions a month.

The money can be cashed out at one of the 120,000 bKash locations across Bangladesh. Those accounts can also be used to make additional P2P transfers or top off mobile airtime, or pay bills. Money stored in bKash accounts earns interest.


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Keywords: MasterCard, Western Union, bKash, BRAC, SME, Bangladesh, remittance
Categories: Payments & Commerce
Companies:
Countries: World
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Payments & Commerce