Bangladeshis spend Tk 1,037cr abroad as card use surges

Bangladeshis went on a Tk1,037 crore foreign-spending blitz in June, sending card-based expenditure abroad soaring by 27.55 per cent in just one month as shopping, medicines, transport and other services fuelled a sharp rise in overseas payments.

The surge means Bangladeshi cardholders spent an additional Tk224 crore abroad in a single month, rising from Tk813 crore in May to Tk1,037 crore in June, according to the latest Bangladesh Bank data.

The jump comes at a time when foreign-currency flows remain a critical concern for Bangladesh, putting overseas card spending increasingly under the spotlight as another formal channel of demand for foreign exchange.

Credit cards led the charge. Overseas credit-card spending surged to Tk552.27 crore in June from Tk425 crore in May, adding Tk127 crore in a month �" an increase of almost 30 per cent.

Debit-card spending stood at Tk423.20 crore, while prepaid cards accounted for Tk61.10 crore. Credit and debit cards together generated around 94 per cent of total overseas card expenditure.

The scale of the spending surge was not confined to a small number of wealthy travellers. Bangladeshi cardholders carried out around 1.80 million overseas transactions during the month �" 863,412 through credit cards, 815,719 through debit cards and 122,025 through prepaid cards.

The average transaction was about Tk6,400 for credit cards and Tk5,200 for debit cards, pointing to a broad-based increase in overseas payments rather than a spike driven solely by a handful of exceptionally large transactions.

Shopping swallows a third of credit-card spending
The biggest destination for overseas credit-card money was not accommodation or air travel �" it was shopping.

Department stores alone absorbed Tk183 crore, or 33.10 per cent of total overseas credit-card spending in June.

Another Tk97.09 crore went to retail outlet services, while transportation accounted for Tk63.90 crore. 

Pharmaceuticals and medicines claimed Tk59 crore, clothing stores Tk39.70 crore and business services Tk39.10 crore.

That means roughly Tk33 out of every Tk100 spent abroad through credit cards went to department stores. 

The figures reveal a broader overseas consumption pattern, with substantial amounts of foreign currency being channelled into retail purchases and services rather than travel-related expenses alone.

US takes the biggest slice
The United States was the largest destination for Bangladeshi credit-card spending, accounting for 15.40 per cent of the total in June. Thailand followed with 10.59 per cent, Saudi Arabia 8.97 per cent and the UK 8.36 per cent. 

Singapore accounted for 7.32 per cent, India 6.79 per cent and Malaysia 6.08 per cent.

Together, these seven destinations captured more than 63 per cent of overseas credit-card spending. The US alone attracted more than twice the share of India.

Bangladeshis spend 4.3 times more abroad than foreigners do here.

The outbound spending becomes even more striking when compared with foreign card expenditure inside Bangladesh.
Foreign nationals spent approximately Tk242 crore through cards in Bangladesh in June, against Tk1,037 crore spent abroad by Bangladeshi cardholders.

Bangladeshis therefore spent about 4.3 times more abroad than foreigners spent in Bangladesh through cards during the month.

The gap does not, by itself, represent Bangladesh's net foreign-exchange loss, since card statistics capture only one segment of cross-border transactions and do not encompass the entire travel and services balance.

But the numbers expose a stark imbalance in card-based international spending: money is flowing outward through Bangladeshi cardholders at a substantially greater scale than it is flowing inward through foreign card users.

Card economy explodes
The overseas spending surge is unfolding against an extraordinary expansion of Bangladesh's card market. The number of debit cards reached 40.27 million in June, up from 23.62 million in July 2021.

Credit cards increased to 2.75 million from 1.74 million over the same period. Prepaid cards recorded the most dramatic expansion, jumping to 8.70 million from just about 955,000 in July 2021.

Domestic card transactions have expanded just as rapidly. Transactions through debit, credit and prepaid cards inside Bangladesh reached Tk44,813 crore in June, compared with Tk23,497 crore in July 2021 �" an increase of about 91 per cent.