Online Desk: The price of US dollar has jumped to Tk 127 in both open and kerb markets on account of a greenback shortage and the rising trend in remittance dollar price in banks.

The rate of the dollar has increased by Tk 7-8 in a span of a week as it was around Tk 120-121 in the open market last week.

However, the retail dollar price is not supposed to exceed Tk 114 as per the central bank fixed rate.

A money exchanger said, “We want to sell dollars as per the instructions of the central bank. But first we have to get dollars. Despite offering Tk 123-124 per dollar, we are not getting any dollar. So, there are no dollars to sell.”

The kerb market registered a jump in the exchange rate a day after media reported that some banks were offering as much as Tk 124 for a greenback to encourage remitters to use formal channels instead of informal money transfer systems like “hundi”.

Following the reports, the Bangladesh Foreign Exchange Dealers’ Association and the Association of Bankers’ Bangladesh on November 8 asked banks not to pay over Tk 115 for every dollar at the time of collecting foreign currencies from the remitters.

A top official of a private bank said there might be a correlation to that but various factors such as a demand spike for payments for smuggling or illegal money transfer abroad might also fuelled exchange rates in the kerb market.