In an exclusive interview with The Daily Star Anil Kapur, Managing Director, South Asia, said the company's ambition was to grow so that a WU agent would be within a kilometer of nearly all Bangladeshis.

"Bangladeshi remittance recipients still need to walk 10 to 12 kilometers to receive their money through banks. We want to reduce the distance to within one kilometer," Anil Kapur said while he was staying in the city during a brief visit to Bangladesh.

"Banks have been in the money transfer business for many years and there is a huge segment that is not in the proper channel, where people are transferring through informal channels. We are helping people move from the informal channel to formal channels, " the US based executive said.

Kapur said one advantage of sending money by WU compared to a bank was speed. "If a non-resident Bangladeshi sends money to any district, the recipient can receive it within 15 minutes of sending."

"The process is very simple as the sender and the receiver do not need to have a bank account. Any person living outside Bangladesh can send money by using his identity cards," he said.

Currently there are 1,200 agent locations of the WU in operation in 64 districts and in 450 upazillas in Bangladesh, up from 550 a year ago, he said, adding that after May 2 the company will add 300 more agents.

"Bangladesh is a very important market to us. Last year non-residence Bangladeshis send about $5.5 billion in remittance. Our vision is that Bangladesh should have a WU presence on every corner of the country. We are talking with many key financial institutions to expand the networks and hopefully you will see some new agents soon," he said

WU is a listed company on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and its global market share in money transferring was 17.4 per cent in the last year.

He said US$ 269 billion was transferred as remittance around the globe last year with WU handling $47 billion.

One of the biggest challenges is affordability, he admitted. "We were a very expensive premier services three or four years ago. We used to charge $39 to transfer $1000 from the USA to Bangladesh, now we charge only $15.

"From the Middle East we charge $7 for $1000, but the bank demand draft is still cheaper than us. Our mission is to make our services affordable to all Bangladeshi people," he added.

The WU has 305,000 agent locations throughout the world, he said, adding that in Bangladesh National Bank Limited, Brac and Brac Bank Limited, Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited (DBBL), Arab Bangladesh Bank Limited and Southeast Bank Limited are the current legal agents for operating money transfer activities through the WU channel.