MasterCard, Western Union, bKash, and BRAC Bank have launched a new international remittance receiving service for Bangladesh expatriates.
The new service makes cross-border money transfers to mobile phones a reality for 22 million Bangladeshis, who are bKash’s registered customers. The service will enable them to receive overseas remittances directly into their bKash accounts.
In order to remit the money, the Bangladeshis living abroad can use Western Union’s global network for sending cross-border remittances that can be received by bKash customers directly onto their mobile phones or collected from a Western Union Agent location.
Customers will have to enter the Western Union money transfer control number (MTCN), amount and bKash PIN and the request will be processed using MasterCard’s secure payment technology and funds credited to the bKash account.
MasterCard will offer the real-time, back-end solution though its MasterCard Send Platform.
The service will accepts single transaction remittances of up to BDT35,000 ($500); up to BDT115,000 ($1,500) over five transactions per customer per day; and combined monthly remittances of up to BDT150,000 ($1,900) and a maximum of 20 transactions a month.
After completion of transfer, the funds can be accessed instantly either cash out the money through 120,000 bKash agent locations across the country, or can be used the account balance to make person to person fund transfers, top-up mobile airtime, pay bills and shop in-store.
