Agent Banking
Agent needs to deposit Tk 10 lakh with bank
Bangladesh Bank on Monday said that the organisations willing to operate agent banking would have to deposit minimum Tk 10 lakh with their banks concerned.
The BB also said that the agents would have to conduct their operation outside the metropolitan cities, city corporations and municipality areas.To this end, the BB issued a circular to managing directors and chief executive officers of all scheduled banks asking them to maintain a current account against their every agent in which agent will deposit Tk 10 lakh.
The agent banking means providing limited-scale banking and financial services by banks to the underserved population through their agents under a valid agency agreement, rather than a teller or a cashier.
The BB circular said that a client of an agent bank would be able to deposit maximum Tk 25,000 and withdraw the same amount in a day.
A client will be able to deposit or withdraw his or her money through the agent banking maximum two times in a day, but the limit will not be applicable for inward remittance, it said.
Banks will have to cover the clients’ transacted money under insurance and they (banks) will have to take prior approval from the BB’s banking regulation and policy department to launch agent banking.
Non-governmental organisations or microfinance institutions regulated by the Microcredit Regulatory Authority of Bangladesh will be able to play as agents of a bank, according to a BB guideline.
Cooperative societies formed and controlled or supervised under Cooperative Society Act, 2001, post offices, companies registered under Bangladesh Company Act, agents of mobile network operators, offices of rural and urban local government institutions like union information service centres, educated individuals capable to handle IT-based financial services, agents of insurance companies, owner of pharmacy, chain shops and petrol pumps, and gas stations will able to act as agents of a scheduled bank.
-With New Age input
