Remittance continued its downward course in March, declining 16.25 percent year-on-year to $1.08 billion -- a development that is likely to prod the central bank into providing incentive to remitters to send money home through official channels.

There is a rising tendency among expatriate Bangladeshis to remit money through digital hundi, depriving the government of foreign currency.

Remittance is Bangladesh's second-biggest source of foreign currency income after garment exports, and this fiscal year the inflow has been lower in every month from a year earlier.

The decline has hit the current account balance negatively and widened the balance of payments.

March's receipt takes the nine-month tally to $9.19 billion, down 18.18 percent year-on-year, according to data from the Bangladesh Bank.

The declining remittance is a new challenge for Bangladesh, Mitsuhiro Furusawa, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, told The Daily Star last month.

The BB has sent two teams to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Singapore and Malaysia to study the causes for the slide and the ways to increase the inflow. The teams found the expatriate Bangladeshis have been sending money through hundi.

Subsequently, they will recommend the government to provide incentives to the remitters so that the inflow through the official channel increases.

The government higher-ups are also mulling over the idea as an attempt to arrest the slide in remittance.

“I think this is a solution through which the decline in remittance receipts could be tackled,” Planning Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said at a press meet recently.

The matter has already been discussed with the prime minister, finance minister and the BB, he said then. The minister did not elaborate on the incentives.