Boom in NRFC account openings

Anjana Samarasinghe

NRFC ACCOUNTS: State Banks say there is a huge interest among migrant workers in opening NRFC accounts.

Assistant Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka Y.M.W.B. Weerasekera told Daily News a recent meeting that he had with the representatives of the State banks revealed that there is a sharp increase in opening of new NRFC accounts.

Normally 10 to 20 new NRFC accounts are opened a month in a bank. But one of the State banks was able to open nearly 400 NRFC accounts in September, he said.

This is mainly due to the awareness programme carried by the CBSL, the Foreign Employment Bureau and the Association of Licensed Foreign Employment Agencies to educate migrant workers on banking facilities available for them, he said.

Under this programme several radio programmes were conducted in the Middle-East to educate migrant workers in Middle East and the Association also produced a brochure for migrant workers to provide more information on banking facilities. The main objective of this programme is to gain more foreign remittances to the banking system in the country, he said.

Plans have also been made to conduct awareness programmes by going to the doorstep of these migrant workers and they also expect to conduct television programmes in these countries.

The Central Bank also requests all the formal money exchange channels to reduce their charges to facilitate the money exchanging business and attract more migrant workers to the banking system.

However these institutes charge nearly six Euros to transfer 100 euros. "We have requested these institutes to reduce their charges and expedite the repatriation process for quick money transferring, he said.

One of the money transferring companies in Sri Lanka recently pledged to do money exchange according to the inter bank market spot rate to give additional advantages to the customers, he said.

This year the Central Bank is targeting nearly USD 2.5 billion through foreign remittances.