Bangladesh Bank has detected several suspicious transactions on the mobile banking platform, especially at late night, which means remittance is being sent home through hundi.

“The transactions are made at a certain time in the night and several such transactions took place in one go,” said Abu Hena Mohd. Razee Hassan, deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank, yesterday during the unveiling of the Monetary Policy Statement for the first half of the fiscal year.

The BB got report of a good number of suspicious transactions through the mobile banking channels, and investigations also revealed a number of irregularities in the mobile bank accounts, he said.

It is now being examined who made the transactions through the accounts; the central bank will take action in this regard soon, he said.

Remittance inflow has been sliding in recent times, and to find the reason behind the decline the BB even sent teams to some countries, including the Middle East.  One of the reasons for the slump in official remittance figures is the growing tendency among migrant workers to send money through hundi.

The money remitted to Bangladesh through hundi is sent from Dhaka to receivers all over the country via mobile banking. The BB detected about 10,000 such accounts through which hundi money is reaching the receivers.

The BB is now working on identifying measures that can be taken, including closing down the accounts.

Besides, anti-money laundering compliance has increased globally in recent times, as a result of which the practice of sending money through official channels has fallen. Another reason for the popularity of hundi is the exchange rate.

Workers'  remittance  inflows  are  on a downward spiral  not  just  because  of  weakened  demand for   migrant   labour,  but  also  because of the high-cost  burden  of compliance   with   unduly   stringent anti-money laundering and counter terrorism financing regulations. “Counterproductively,   this   is   pushing   the migrant workers'  remittances  increasingly  into  the informal hundi or hawala  channels, which are open  to  abuse  by  money launderers  and  other  agents,” the MPS said.

While announcing the MPS, the BB high officials also responded to various queries from reporters.

In 2015, the central bank under a policy provided a facility to restrict long-term loans of more than Tk 500 crore. Ten business groups availed the facility.  At the time the BB fixed a condition that the facility would not be given in future. If they became defaulters in future, BB will realise the money by filing cases against them.

Of them, five groups again became defaulters within one and a half years.

Asked if they will be given another scope for restructuring, BB Governor Fazle Kabir answered in the negative.

Asked whether the stance of filing case if they default again still holds, BB Deputy Governor SK Sur Chowdhury said, “It is still the case.” About the increase in irregularities and default loans in 15 banks despite appointment of observers, Kabir said, “I can tell confidently where there is an observer the question of irregularity does not arise there.” In general, irregularities in all banks have decreased, he added.

Chowdhury said the default loans in banks have increased due to the introduction of a new loan classification policy in 2012. “Various steps are now being taken to cut this,” he added.