Bangladesh Bank has expanded the areas of remittance incentive, encouraging expatriates to send foreign currencies home through legal channels.

The new five earning sources for incentive include: pension fund, provident fund, leaves salary, bonus and other gratuities and other retirement benefits, according to a circular issued on Thursday.

The directive is effective immediately, said the circular signed by Kazi Rafiqul Hassan, general manager at Foreign Exchange Policy Department of the central bank.

Earlier, the Ministry of Finance raised the cash bonus for remittances to 2.5 percent from 2 percent. The directive is effective from January 1 this year. Following the policy’s introduction, inward remittances increased 13 percent to $16.2 billion in FY2019-20 from a year earlier.

In FY2020-21, the remittance inflow rose 36 percent year-on-year to $24.6 billion, official data showed.