If you send money from the UK to Bangladesh once a month, the question underneath the search is not just which app is cheapest. It is where the money actually lands on the other side. Your mother gets a text from bKash, or a text from Nagad, or she walks to the bank on Sunday morning; the app you already have installed usually decides which, because most apps only pay into some of those places and not others.
There are three places the money can land, and they are worth naming plainly. A Bangladeshi bank account, credited through the country’s own bank network. A bKash wallet on the recipient’s phone. Or a Nagad wallet on the recipient’s phone. bKash and Nagad are the two big mobile-wallet services in Bangladesh, and between them they carry most of the digital money in the country. The bank route is the older one, quieter, and usually the cheapest per pound. The two wallets are instant and work at any hour.
What 300 pounds actually arrives as this week
Checked 2026-08-26, morning UK time. Four apps had a fresh price for a 300 pound bank-deposit send to Bangladesh in Wise’s price comparison:
| App | £300 arrives as | Visible fee | What is going on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remitly | BDT 49,757.44 | £0.99 | Best on the numbers this week. Rate about 0.63 percent below the real market rate, plus the small fee. Everyday price, not a first-transfer promo. |
| Instarem | BDT 49,701.89 | £0.00 | No visible fee at all; the whole cost is in the rate, about 1.07 percent below the real market rate. About 55 taka behind Remitly, or roughly £0.33. |
| Wise | BDT 49,521.66 | £4.26 | Safe default. The rate is the real market rate, the fee is on the screen, and both are what they look like. About 235 taka behind Remitly, or roughly £1.42. |
| Xoom (PayPal) | BDT 48,676.24 | £2.99 | Fee looks small on the screen. Rate is about 2.13 percent below the real market rate, worth about £5.06 on 300 pounds. Total gap to Remitly is about £6.51. |
The real market rate is the number Google shows you if you search what the pound is worth in taka. On 2026-08-26 the Wise live rate feed put it at 167.45 taka to the pound. An independent public rate source, open.er-api.com, put it at 167.57 taka to the pound the same morning, 0.07 percent away from Wise. The rate matches.
Rates pulled around 05:10 in London on 2026-08-26 from Wise’s live rate feed and its price comparison. Instarem’s row was sampled at 04:26 London time, Remitly’s at 04:40, Xoom’s at 02:42. LemFi, TapTap Send, WorldRemit, Sendwave and Western Union did not have a fresh price on this route in the comparison this morning, so they are not in the table this week. If you already have one of them installed, open it and type 300 pounds in to see the taka it quotes; that is the only number that decides it.
How each app pays it out
Not every app pays into every one of the three places. This is the practical bit.
Wise pays into a Bangladeshi bank account, and that is what the table above measures. Wise also pays into bKash from inside the same app: pick bKash as the destination, type in the recipient’s mobile phone number, and the taka lands in her wallet in a few minutes. Wise does not currently pay into Nagad from the UK. If the recipient is on Nagad and not bKash, another app is the answer.
Instarem pays only into a Bangladeshi bank account on this route. If the recipient banks with any of the big commercial banks, this works cleanly. If she does not have a bank account, an app with a wallet payout is what you need instead.
Remitly is the widest of the four. Its Bangladesh page lists bKash, Nagad, Rocket, bank deposit and cash pickup as places the money can land, which is the broadest coverage in the table this week and the only way, of these four, to pay into Nagad.
Xoom, the PayPal-owned app, pays into a bank account, a mobile wallet including bKash, and cash pickup at an agent shop. Useful if the recipient prefers to pick up cash rather than see the money on the phone.
LemFi, TapTap Send and WorldRemit also cover the UK-to-Bangladesh route and pay into bKash, Nagad, or a bank account depending on the send. None of them had a fresh number in this morning’s Wise price comparison, so the table cannot judge them today. A lot of UK Bangladeshi senders already use one of them, and if you do, open it and type in 300 pounds before you install anything new.
How fast the money actually moves
A bank deposit goes through Bangladesh’s own bank network. It usually lands the same working day or the next working day, once the receiving bank has cleared it. It is the cheapest way per pound for most apps, and it works for older recipients who do not use a mobile wallet. But it does not move on a Friday afternoon or a bank holiday, because the receiving bank is closed and the money waits until Sunday morning, when the working week in Bangladesh starts again. Wise’s own delivery estimate for a Friday-morning bank-deposit send is usually the following Sunday around midday UK time, about two working days later.
A bKash payment lands on the recipient’s phone in a few minutes, at any hour, seven days a week. She sees a text from bKash, the wallet fills, and she can spend the money inside the wallet straight away, pay bills with it, or take cash out at a bKash agent when the shop opens. Cash-out at an agent costs her a small charge on top, usually a bit under 2 percent of the amount she takes out.
Nagad works the same way as bKash on the sender’s side. The recipient sees a text from Nagad and the wallet fills. Cash-out at a Nagad agent is priced similarly. In practice, whether the family uses bKash or Nagad is a matter of which one everyone in the family already has installed, and which one the local shops accept. Some households use both, and split the incoming money between them.
The two new deals worth knowing about
Over the weekend of 2026-08-23, two Bangladesh-side deals were signed that reshape which banks push remittances into which wallets. Neither is aimed at you as the sender, but both affect where your money can land.
Community Bank Bangladesh signed a strategic partnership with Nagad on Thursday 2026-08-20 at Community Bank’s head office in Gulshan, Dhaka. Foreign remittances received through Community Bank can now be paid out through Nagad’s agent network, and Community Bank customers can Add Money to Nagad wallets directly.
NRBC Bank signed a memorandum with bKash the same week, to move foreign remittance payouts through bKash more quickly. The two deals point the same way: the banks are shortening the last mile between “the remittance arrived in Bangladesh” and “it is on my phone.” For you, that mostly shows up as a slightly wider set of banks that can deliver to a wallet without a manual step in the middle.
The 2.5 percent incentive, and where the sender sees it
Bangladesh Bank pays a 2.5 percent incentive on remittances that come in through a legal channel. It is paid to the recipient, not the sender. The receiving bank or wallet adds it automatically when the money lands, on any single transfer up to BDT 500,000. Above that ceiling, the recipient has to send documentation to claim it.
You do not see the 2.5 percent on the sender-side app. You will see the rate Wise or Instarem or Remitly is offering, and you will see the fee, and that is it. The 2.5 percent lands on the recipient’s side: 300 pounds sent through Remitly this morning arrives as 49,757.44 taka in the wallet or the account, and the incentive credits another 1,244 taka on top of that, for a total of about 51,001 taka (about £305).
This is the reason the government keeps the 2.5 percent going: to keep senders on the formal apps and out of the informal hundi channel. The informal channel usually looks like a better rate on the sender’s side, and then the recipient loses the 2.5 percent, and the numbers even out or come out worse. If the app is licensed, the incentive is on. If it is not, it is not.
Bank or wallet? A plain rule
Send to a bank account if the recipient has one and uses it. It is the cheapest way per pound, it handles bigger transfers cleanly, and the 2.5 percent incentive credits straight into the account on landing.
Send to bKash or Nagad if the recipient wants the money on the phone now, or if she does not have a bank account, or if the money is for immediate spending. The wallet is instant, seven days a week. The bank is next-working-day and closed on Fridays.
For a monthly send in the 100 to 500 pound band, the split many families use is a small share to the wallet for the week’s food and bills, and a larger share to the bank for the rent and the school fees. Nothing about the way the money is set up forces you to send it all one way.
What to actually open
For the numbers this week, on a bank-deposit send of 300 pounds, Remitly delivered the most taka and Instarem was a hair behind. The two of them are within 55 taka of each other, so if you already have one installed, use that one; do not open a new app for the difference.
For the safest, best-known default, use Wise. On 300 pounds this week Wise gave about 235 taka less than Remitly, which is roughly £1.42. The rate is the real market rate, the fee is on the screen, and there are no surprises. For a lot of senders that plainness is worth the £1.42.
For a send where the recipient wants the money on her phone this evening, and not in her bank account on Sunday morning, use an app that pays into her wallet. Wise pays into bKash. Remitly pays into bKash or Nagad or Rocket. Xoom pays into bKash. If your recipient is on Nagad and not bKash, Remitly is the shortest path from a UK app in the table this week.
Do not open your high-street bank’s international transfer flow for this send. On 300 pounds the exchange rate the bank uses will typically be a few percent below the real market rate, and the transfer fee will be extra on top. On a routine 100 to 500 pound send home, that is money you lose every month for no reason.