Remitting Money to Bangladesh: What Do Migrants Prefer?

This paper looks into the remittance channels used by Bangladeshi labor migrants in Hong Kong and Malaysia and examines the reasons why they prefer particular modes of money transfer. Data were collected from 126 respondents (56 in Hong Kong and 70 in Malaysia) through a survey conducted during June 2004 to October 2005. An overwhelming majority of migrants preferred unofficial over official channels in transferring money. According to migrants, the informal channels are quicker in transferring money and the exchange rate is higher than the formal channels. They recognized though that there is a considerable amount of risk in remitting through informal channels.