In their statement, the bank revealed that they will be enabling transactions on previously blocked foreign merchants including selected money transfer platforms and digital wallets as of 31st March 2024.
BML
Towards the end of 2020, the Bank of Maldives (BML) made some major changes that would change the way that people would perceive the national banking system. In a released statement in December 2020, BML revealed its plans to disable transactions on selected merchant websites. This meant that some major websites that the bank flagged as unlawful would be identified and the BML card could no longer be used to make or receive payments through such websites. With this, some of the major websites that were affected included Skrill and Transferwise in addition to online trading platforms.
At the time, BML also stated that these measures were being put into place in order to reduce the facilitation of illegal activities through BML cards as well as reduce the non-essential outflow of USD from the country, due to the limited foreign currency availability in the nation. These changes affected both personal as well as corporate credit cards, which undoubtedly raised a lot of issues with citizens.
And now, almost four years into these major changes BML has updated their policy revealing that the bank is planning to enable transactions on online money transfer platforms as well as digital wallets. In their statement, the bank revealed that they will be enabling transactions on previously blocked foreign merchants including selected money transfer platforms and digital wallets as of 31st March 2024. With these updated changes, customers of the bank can now use the BML Visa USD credit card or Mastercard prepaid USD travel card to seamlessly send and receive funds from these platforms. Further, the bank also revealed that customers can use a BML-issued debit card with a USD account as the card’s primary account to send money to these merchants.
We understand the importance of supporting freelancers and small merchants who rely on payments received from overseas for their livelihoods and well-being and we are delighted to enable this for our customers as another step towards enhancing our banking and payment experience.
