Banks have now received free rein to deal with overseas exchange houses to bring in more foreign currencies and refill depleted forex reserves.
Prices of the dollar shot up to Tk119.9 in the kerb market on Wednesday from Tk115 on Monday.
To make way for the free flow of forex, Bangladesh Bank eased its rules to allow banks to make drawing arrangements with overseas exchange houses without prior permission from the central bank, officials said on Wednesday.
The prerequisite of obtaining letters of references/certificates from the Bangladesh Embassy or High Commission in the respective country for setting up such drawing arrangements has been waived, driven the exigencies arising out of complex global crises.
All the authorized dealer (AD) banks are now permitted to go for drawing arrangements without letters of references or certificates from the Bangladesh missions, subject to satisfaction on licences issued by competent authorities favouring relevant exchange houses, and on conducting extended due diligence, according to a notification issued by the central bank on the day as the local currency kept losing its value in exchange with the US dollar-now in hot demand worldwide.
The banks may make drawing arrangements with exchange houses abroad without prior permission from the central bank.
In this context, ADs shall make post-facto report to the central bank with detailed information of the arrangements, the central bank says in the notification waiving the obligations.
Earlier, the central bank would accord banks, on application, the right to make drawing arrangements with exchange houses abroad as per the policy guidelines 2007.
Currently, 29 exchange houses are operating across the globe, setting up around 1,500 drawing arrangements abroad, to expedite the remittance inflow, according to the central banker.
The latest moves come in the wake of falling trend in the flow of inward remittances in FY22, despite enhancement of cash incentives on remittance receipts.
The flow of inward remittances dropped over 15% to $21.03 billion in FY22 from $24.78 billion a year before.
Lower remittance inflow along with higher import-payment obligations had pushed down Bangladesh's current-account deficit to an 'all-time' high at $18.70 billion in FY22.
The central bank has so far injected $1.60 billion from the reserves directly into commercial banks as liquidity support for import payments in ongoing FY23.
In FY22, the central bank sold $7.62 billion from the reserves to the banks for the same purpose.
Bangladesh's forex reserves came down to $39.60 billion on Monday from $39.66 billion of the previous working day following higher sales of dollar to feed the market.