Published in The Daily Star on Monday 11 May 2020
Agent banking solutions during coronavirus pandemic
Dr Khondaker Golam Moazzem, Research Director, Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD)
Regarding the COVID-19 situation, there were instructions from the government that the agents will receive some incentive upon starting their services from their respective banks. Such an initiative might prove to be burdensome for banks. However, to tackle this, CPD is trying to bring out a proposal for the government to include in its upcoming budget, where it explores if it is possible to provide tax exemption to all those companies that are undertaking emergency initiatives despite pressure or losses during the COVID-19 crisis.
Since remittance is a big source of deposit collection in agent banking, it will continue to remain this way in the future. So far, agent banking has obtained around 15,500 crore taka. A part of this amount is with banks as loans or deposits. Banks can explore if loans can be provided with easier conditions to those who previously used to send money through agent banking services from abroad and have now returned to the country by leaving those jobs as these people will not be able to return to their jobs anytime soon. The government has created a pool of 200 crore taka for these people but that fund will not suffice.