Students Can Now Use International Cards to Pay Study Abroad Fees
Bangladesh Bank (BB) has allowed Authorised Dealer (AD) banks to issue international debit, credit, or prepaid cards for paying tuition and education-related fees for students pursuing regular courses abroad, including admission or enrollment platforms. The central bank issued a circular on Monday stating that the facility covers undergraduate, postgraduate, language, and professional programmes for anyone pursuing higher education abroad. The cards can be issued directly in the name of the student or their financial sponsor. To prevent misuse, banks must perform standard due diligence, including Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML/CFT) checks, before loading foreign exchange onto designated cards. Cards will have set validity periods, strict transaction limits corresponding to required fee amounts, and must be reported via Bangladesh Bank’s TM module. Importantly, these transactions will be treated separately and will not deduct from a citizen’s standard annual travel quota. Under previous regulations, students had to go through a formal, paper-intensive procedure by opening a dedicated physical “student file” at an authorised bank branch. Banks processed fee payments solely through direct electronic wire transfers to the foreign university’s bank account. To send funds, students had to repeatedly visit the bank branch and submit original offer letters, official cost estimates, and academic certificates for manual verification each time an instalment was due. International cards were restricted to general living expenses or small application fees like TOEFL/SATs, but not direct tuition payments. The Key Problem Driving the New Rule The main issue triggering this regulatory update was the operational mismatch between traditional Bangladeshi banking methods and the modern payment gateways used abroad. Foreign educational institutions, admission portals, and third-party education platforms increasingly demand instant payments made online via international credit or debit cards during enrollment. Because Bangladeshi banks could only issue direct wire transfers through the student file system, students were frequently unable to complete time-sensitive online seat reservations, document processing fees, or enrollment payments required by overseas university systems. The new card facility resolves this bottleneck by allowing direct card processing on foreign platforms.