Asia-Pacific · GDP rank #36
Bangladesh
BD · BDT @ 0.0082/USD
Bangladesh runs the world's third-largest mobile-money market by user count, anchored by bKash (75m registered users, ~63% of MFS market share), Nagad (~95m, fast catching up on state-payments distribution) and Rocket. Mobile Financial Services account for the bulk of retail digital payments; cards are a smaller, urban-skewed channel. Bangladesh Bank launched the interoperable Binimoy platform in November 2022 to unify wallet-to-bank-to-wallet rails; volumes scaled materially in 2024–25 as RMG (ready-made-garments) payroll moved decisively onto digital wallets. The 2024 taka unification under the IMF ECF programme reset the FX line and pulled remittance flows back through formal channels.
Tab 05
Cross-border
Inbound and outbound remittance corridors, tourism flows, FX markup on retail cross-border, and the country's posture on stablecoin adoption. Corridor figures come from the World Bank RPW feed or the publishing central bank; both are cited when they disagree.
Remittance inflows
USD · FY2024-25
Remittance outflows
USD · 2024
Inbound tourism spend
USD · 2024
Outbound tourism spend
USD · 2024
Constrained by USD allowance rules; Indian medical-tourism and pilgrimage corridors are the largest segments.
Avg. corridor cost
% · Q4 2024
Improving as bKash and Nagad inbound corridors compress fees against the legacy bank-MTO stack.
Net receiver
Top inbound corridors
- Saudi ArabiaUS$5.4B
via MTO
- United Arab EmiratesUS$4.7B
via MTO
- United StatesUS$3.5B
via bank
- MalaysiaUS$1.5B
via MTO
- United KingdomUS$1.4B
via bank
Top outbound corridors
- IndiaUS$0.4B
via MTO
Cross-border card
Card flow leaving and arriving
Cards issued domestically and used abroad reflect outbound consumer travel and cross-border e-commerce; volume acquired from abroad reflects inbound tourism and foreign online shoppers.
Issued volume spent abroad
USD/year · 2024
USD endorsement (cardholder allowance) rules cap retail outbound spending; loosened during 2024 reform.
Acquired volume from abroad
USD/year · 2024
FX cost
What consumers pay above the interbank
Retail FX markup is the spread between the mid-market rate and the rate the consumer receives — the single largest friction point in small-ticket cross-border.
- FX regime
- crawling-peg
- Reference
- Taka under a crawling-peg regime since July 2024 IMF-conditioned unification. Bangladesh Bank announces periodic reference-rate adjustments around a market-determined band; formal peg removed but de-facto management remains active.
Source · Bangladesh Bank
Full reference
Remittances
Net Position: receiver
Source:
Source:
Kpis
Gross FX reserves
USD · Apr 2026— Stabilised after the post-2022 drawdown; IMF disbursements and remittance recovery underpin the rebuild.