After correcting data errors, Saudi Arabia has once again taken the top spot for sending the highest remittance to Bangladesh. The United States, which had held the top position for the past few years, has now dropped to fifth place. Data from the central bank shows that remittance inflows from the U.S. have fallen for three consecutive months since April this year. In contrast, inflows from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and several Middle Eastern countries have increased.
According to relevant officials, there had been major errors in identifying the source countries of Bangladesh’s remittances. Earnings sent through remittance houses owned by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates were being recorded as coming from those countries. However, from April this year, the reporting of source countries has been corrected. As a result, recorded remittances from the U.S. have dropped by half, while those from Saudi Arabia have doubled.
On February 7 this year, Bonik Barta published an investigative report on the sources of remittances from the U.S. The report titled “Mastercard, Western Union, & Instant Cash; Few international companies have created an oligopoly in the remittance market,” was first published in Bangla on both the Print and Online Editions of Bonik Barta and later translated for the English Online Edition. The report showed that “a large portion of the remittances credited to the U.S. does not in fact originate from Bangladeshi residents there. Instead, remittances sent by Bangladeshis living in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, and other Middle Eastern countries are being recorded under U.S. remittance figures. Similarly, funds from expatriates in Southeast Asian nations like Malaysia and Singapore, as well as from Europe and Latin America, are also being counted as U.S. remittances.
This discrepancy is primarily caused by remittance inflows collected through American financial service providers such as Mastercard, Western Union, and other money aggregators. These aggregators collect cross-border funds from smaller exchange houses and channel them through the U.S., leading to significant statistical distortions.”
After Bonik Barta published the report, Bangladesh Bank took notice and initiated measures to correct the data on remittance source countries. Speaking to Bonik Barta on the matter, the central bank’s Executive Director and Spokesperson, Arief Hossain Khan, said, “Remittance houses in the United States, including Mastercard and Western Union, used to collect remittances from the Middle East and other countries, bring them to the U.S., and then send them to Bangladesh using U.S. gateways. For this reason, remittances from the Middle East were also considered as coming from the U.S. But recently we have made corrections to the reporting process. Because of this, the U.S. is moving further down the list.”
The central bank’s Governor has instructed remittance houses to bring more transparency to reporting after holding meetings with them. Sharing this information, Arief Hossain Khan said, “Bangladesh Bank is also monitoring the matter. In the future, there will be more transparency in the data on remittance source countries. Then it may even be found that the U.S. is not in the top ten.”
According to central bank data, after the correction of source country information, remittances recorded from the U.S. have fallen by more than half. In March this year, the amount of remittances from the U.S. was $546.1 million. From the following month, it began to decline. In April, remittances from the U.S. dropped to $330.8 million. In May, the figure stood at $223.7 million, and in June it was $238.1 million. Meanwhile, during the same period, remittance inflows from Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and other countries increased.
After correcting the source country data, it appears that Saudi Arabia—Bangladesh’s main labor market—has once again taken the top position. In the last quarter of FY 2024–25, from April to June, over $1.49 billion came from the Middle Eastern nation. The United Arab Emirates was in second place with over $1.04 billion, followed by the United Kingdom in third with over $1 billion. Malaysia was fourth with $910 million, while the U.S., which had held the top position in recent years, sent only $792.7 million.
Bank executives say that if full transparency is ensured in reporting, remittance figures from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates will drop even further. This is because remittance houses in these three countries collect money from Bangladeshis living in various parts of the world and later sell it to Bangladeshi banks through negotiations. Banks then record the remittance as coming from the country where the remittance house is based.
In the case of the United States, Mastercard has played a major role in inflating the reported remittance figures. Known worldwide for its debit and credit card network, the American company has also become a giant in the global remittance market in recent years. Mastercard entered the remittance business in 2019 by acquiring money exchange company Transfast. Since then, its cross-border remittance business has expanded rapidly, and the company now operates in 210 countries. In recent years, Mastercard has also become a major channel for remittances to Bangladesh. As its market share grew, so did the reported remittance inflows from the U.S.
Syed Mohammad Kamal is Mastercard’s Country Manager for Bangladesh. Speaking to Bonik Barta, he said, “The confusion over data was not from Mastercard, but from the banks. Some banks were showing remittances purchased from Mastercard as coming from the U.S., even though the funds may have been collected from 160–170 countries. That’s because we operate globally. We were the ones who told Bangladesh Bank to instruct banks to bring transparency to their reporting.”