The Bank of Maldives (BML) has enabled transactions on previously blocked foreign merchants including selected money transfer platforms and digital wallets.
With this change, customers can use the Bank’s Visa USD Credit Card or Mastercard Prepaid USD Travel Card to send and receive funds from these platforms.
The national bank said customers can also use BML-issued Debit cards 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," the bank's CEO Karl Stumke said.
Although BML allows transactions on many foreign money transfer platforms and digital wallets, this does not include PayPal.
BML blocked foreign merchants from depositing money from online digital wallets to dollar accounts in 2020.
