In a move to find a resolution to this issue, President Dr Mohamed Muizzu revealed that those who are seeking to go on their Umrah trip during Ramadan of 2025 will get access to USD 1,500 dollars at the bank rate.
SunOnline International
The biggest group of people who were affected by the dollar limits that were placed by the Bank of Maldives (BML) due to dollar shortages following the COVID-19 pandemic were travellers. This included people who were going abroad for leisure, and healthcare, as well as citizens who travelled for the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimage. With the new dollar limits, travellers were either forced to look into getting a credit card that provided a USD 750 limit, which is a lot more than the USD 250 that is available for the debit card, or buy 500 dollars at the bank rate from BML and secure whatever additional amount is needed, usually at a higher black market rate.
This led to trips abroad, whether for leisure or religious reasons becoming more expensive as citizens had to pay high prices to secure the amount of dollars needed. Although people going abroad for medical trips have more options to work out a higher dollar access through the bank, one of the groups that continued to face this difficulty were travellers who went to Umrah. In a move to find a resolution to this issue, President Dr Mohamed Muizzu revealed that those who are seeking to go on their Umrah trip during Ramadan of 2025 will get access to USD 1,500 dollars at the bank rate. Following up on this promise, BML has now revealed that the bank will be increasing the debit card limit of these travellers to an extra USD 1,500 with the following conditions to be applied:
