A selection panel comprising representatives from Bangladesh Bank, DFID and RPCF's Managers has short listed 31 concepts from the 83 one-page concept notes received in December 2009. The short listed concepts are listed here. The applicants of the 31 concepts have bid for grants in excess of £2.2 million, compared to earmarked Round 4 funding of £690,000. The applicants will now provide full 4-page concept notes to be judged by the RPCF Assessment Panel.

83 one page concepts, prepared by 67 organisations, requesting grants in excess of £5 million, were received before the deadline of 15 December expired. It is hoped that 25-35 of these ideas will be selected for further consideration.  An announcement will be made on 10 January 2010 regarding those concepts selected.

Round 4 of the challenge is announced. Concepts are invited that contribute to one of the following:

1. Encourage the productive use of remittances

2. Deepen access to the formal financial sector through the innovative use of modern technology

3 Deepen Bangladesh Post Office’s capacity as a remittance and payment service provider

For more information, click on the Round 4 tab

The RPCF Assessment Panel met in mid October 2008 to consider full scale applications for grants and gave its assent to a further 4 projects.

Details of the grants will be provided here after the grant agreements are signed and preconditions are met, including regulatory permissions.

As a result RPCF has committed its total funding and further rounds of the challenge fund will only be made if additional funding is made available.

RPCF has signed a cost sharing grant agreement with BURO Bangladesh, for a project entitled “Capacity Building to Enable BURO to provide Remittance Services to Commercial Banks”. Under the agreed project, BURO will provide remittance delivery services to the banking sector through 125 of its branches located in remittance prone areas.

The project will assist BURO to buy remittance delivery equipment that will enable their branches to deliver cash and card remittance products for a number of banks.

BURO is the 5th largest NGO/MFI in Bangladesh serving 500,000 clients from its 329 branches.

In late June 2008 RPCF concluded negotiations on two grants to support public private partnerships that will provide Sonali Bank Ltd and Agrani Bank Ltd with key remittance processing infrastructure and access to modern remittance products.

The grants have been provided to data edge limited for its partnership with the Sonali Bank Ltd, and to Electronic Transactions Network Ltd for its partnership with Agrani Bank Ltd.

The state-owned Sonali and Agrani Banks process 23% of remittances to Bangladesh, and the infrastructure created under the partnerships will significantly improve processing times, lower processing costs, and will allow these banks to offer up-to-date remittance products.

Further details of these partnerships will be provided here in the near future

The RPCF was a subject of a front page article in the influential Bangladeshi newspaper, the Financial Express on 18 January 2008.

The article can be veiwed at the Financial Express website or below

National Credit and Commerce Bank Ltd, a mid sized private sector Bangladeshi bank has announced their remittance delivery partnership with leading NGO, Thengamara Mohila Sabuj Sangha (TMSS), during a launching ceremony held at the Dhaka Sheraton Hotel on 14 February 2008.

The partnership with deliver NCCB international remittances through its 50 of its own branches and 250 branches of TMSS located in migrant prone areas, through prepaid debit cards that can be used to draw out cash at any convenient ATM or POS machine. The 8 crore Taka project is part funded by RPCF.

More information is available here

Six grants, worth up to £576,144, were approved, subject to grant contract, at the 4th meeting of the Challenge Fund Assessment Panel, held on 3rd April 2008. The decision on one other project was deferred.

Details of these grants will be posted here after signing the grant agreements and after all regulatory approvals are obtained.