Krishi Bank has shown a big surprise in collecting expatriate income or remittances in the first eight months of this year (January-August). This bank, known as the farmer's bank for distributing agricultural loans, has risen to third position in collecting expatriate income from abroad in the last eight months. A recent report by Bangladesh Bank on expatriate income has revealed the bank's success.

According to Krishi Bank sources, this achievement of the bank in expatriate income is part of the continuous improvement. In 2023, the state-owned bank was in 15th position in collecting expatriate income. Last year, it improved eight steps to reach seventh position. And so far this year, it is in third position. In January of this year, the bank collected expatriate income of 116 million US dollars. And in August, it increased to 300 million 19 million dollars. In total, from January to August of this year, Krishi Bank collected 197 million 62 million dollars in expatriate income, which is about 9.2 percent of the total expatriate income coming into the country during this period. From January to August of this year, expatriate income in the country was 21.45 billion or 21.45 billion dollars.

Since its establishment, Krishi Bank has been mainly dependent on agricultural loans, but since 2018, it has started increasing its capacity to collect expatriate income. After that, the institution's expatriate income has gradually increased. Ali Hossain Pradhaniya served as the chairman of the bank from 2018 to 2021. He is currently a supernumerary professor at the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM) and chairman of NRBC Bank.

When asked about this, Ali Hossain Pradhaniya told Prothom Alo, "Krishi Bank had a big opportunity to collect expatriate income. However, the bank was unable to utilize this opportunity earlier. Around 2018, only five to seven hundred thousand dollars in expatriate income was coming in every month. At that time, we started working with all the major expatriate income collection institutions in the world to increase expatriate income. We would contact the branches that could not collect any expatriate income to increase their interest." After that, the branch managers and officials of the bank also took the initiative to increase expatriate income. With everyone's combined efforts, Krishi Bank has now made it to the list of top five banks in terms of collecting expatriate income.

Three of the top five are government banks.

Almost half of the expatriate income that has come to the country until August this year has come through the top five banks. These five banks have brought in 49 percent of the expatriate income in the country in the first eight months of the year. Of these, three are state-owned banks and two are private banks. The three state-owned banks are Krishi Bank, Agrani Bank and Janata Bank. And the two private banks in the top five are Islami Bank and BRAC Bank. Among these top five banks, Islami Bank, Agrani Bank, Krishi Bank, Janata Bank and BRAC Bank are in the first to fifth positions in the list, respectively.

Of the $21.45 billion in expatriate income that came into the country from January to August, the five banks mentioned above brought in $10.5 billion or $1,500 million. Of this, the three state-owned banks brought in $5.46 billion or $5.46 billion. Accordingly, state-owned Krishi, Agrani and Janata Banks brought in 25 percent or one-fourth of the expatriate income that came into the country in the last eight months.

According to the Bangladesh Bank report, two of the top five banks collecting expatriate income have swapped positions in August compared to January this year. State-owned Sonali Bank was in second place in collecting expatriate income in January. That month, the bank brought in $179.3 million in expatriate income. In August, Sonali Bank dropped from second to seventh place. In August, Sonali Bank brought in $117.5 million in expatriate income. Krishi Bank has overtaken Sonali Bank and taken third place.

Regarding Krishi Bank's success in expatriate income, the bank's General Manager Mostafizur Rahman told Prothom Alo, "This success is the result of our efforts since 2018. Our biggest strength is more than 1,000 branches spread across remote areas of the country. Earlier, our customers had to come to the bank to collect expatriate income. Now, as a result of agreements with various MFS institutions and money exchange houses including bKash, Nagad, customers are getting this service from home. As a result, expatriates are becoming interested in Krishi Bank to quickly deliver money to their families."