Project XBY

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 08

Pulse

The preceding ~90 days of macro, regulation, product, funding and milestone events. Each item is primary-sourced; no trade-press echo.

  1. 7 days agodata

    Bangladesh Bank: FY2024-25 wage-earner remittance inflow at US$26.6bn — record high

    Bangladesh Bank confirmed full-year FY2024-25 wage-earner remittance inflows at US$26.6bn, +22% YoY and the highest on record. Saudi Arabia (US$5.4bn), the UAE (US$4.7bn) and the US (US$3.5bn) led the five-corridor cluster. The surge reflects the July 2024 taka unification pulling informal hundi flows back into formal channels at parity.

    • #remittances
    • #bangladesh-bank
    • #fx

    Source: Bangladesh Bank

  2. 3 weeks agoregulation

    Bangladesh Bank holds repo rate at 10.00% — sixth consecutive hold

    The Monetary Policy Committee held the repo rate at 10.00% citing sticky headline CPI at 8.2% and the need to anchor taka stability post-unification. The Bank reaffirmed the crawling-peg regime; gross FX reserves stood at US$22.5bn at end-April.

    • #macro
    • #bangladesh-bank
    • #rates

    Source: Bangladesh Bank

  3. 5 weeks agomilestone

    bKash crosses 75 million registered users; merchant base above 470,000

    bKash confirmed registered users above 75 million in April updates, with merchant acceptance points above 470,000. Q1 transaction volume rose ~24% YoY; BRAC Bank Q1 disclosures reaffirmed bKash's profit trajectory after the 2024 cost-base reset.

    • #bkash
    • #mfs
    • #milestone

    Source: bKash

  4. 2 months agoregulation

    Bangladesh Bank tightens MFS mule-account detection rules

    Bangladesh Bank issued a consumer-protection circular on 3 April requiring MFS providers to deploy real-time mule-account detection across all wallet-opening and high-velocity transaction flows. The directive responds to a +62% YoY rise in social-engineering scam complaints during 2024.

    • #regulation
    • #fraud
    • #mfs

    Source: Bangladesh Bank

  5. 2 months agolaunch

    Nagad migrates to Bangladesh Bank-supervised subsidiary structure

    Nagad completed its transition to a Bangladesh Bank-supervised regulated subsidiary structure during Q1 2026, the final step of the 2024 regulatory transition from a Bangladesh Post Office-anchored special arrangement. The new structure aligns governance and capital adequacy with the MFS Regulations 2022.

    • #nagad
    • #regulation
    • #mfs

    Source: Bangladesh Bank

  6. 3 months agodata

    Binimoy clears 85m transactions in FY2024-25 — 4.8x YoY

    Bangladesh Bank's FY2024-25 Binimoy operational statistics, released in late February, showed 85m cleared transactions worth BDT 380bn — a 4.8x jump versus FY2023-24. The acceleration reflects the BB-PSPs-banks compromise on commercial terms reached in mid-2024 and onboarding of additional MFS providers.

    • #binimoy
    • #bangladesh-bank
    • #data

    Source: Bangladesh Bank