Cash Withdrawal Ceiling for Microfinance Institutions

The Financial Regulatory Department (“FRD”) issued a letter on 19 May 2021 which requires licensed microfinance institutions (“MFIs”) to provide one-time information to the Central Bank of Myanmar (“CBM”) regarding the cash amount they expect to withdraw over a one-week period. The format of the report is prescribed in the letter.

The letter refers to Directive 28/2021 issued by CBM on 1 March 2021 which set the ceiling on the maximum cash withdrawal by companies at MMK 20 million per week.

The letter further mentions that the CBM now intends to review the possibility of setting a different cash withdrawal ceiling for MFIs in order to ease the performance of their operations and the reporting is introduced for the purposes of this analysis.

Based on the collected data, the CBM may decide on the need to set a specific cash withdrawal ceiling that would apply to MFIs.