MMA issues total USD 15.2 million to travelers

Central bank, Maldives Monetary Authority (MMA) has issued USD 15.2 million for tickets in little over two months after it took over the sale of dollars to travelers to resolve the inconvenience of travelers having to queue outside banks for hours during the year-end holidays.

MMA started issuing dollars from its headquarters as part of a more convenient system on November 20, 2016. It issued USD 802,125 that day itself.

MMA’s information officer, Mansoor Zubari reported last Monday that the authority had issued total USD 15,164,002 for 30,502 tickets from November 20 to January 9. That’s MVR 233.8 million.

The largest amount of dollars issued on a single day was on December 12 – when it issued USD 814,019 for 1,629 tickets.

The lowest amount of dollars was issued on Monday, January 9 – when it issued USD 15,510 for 32 tickets.

Dollars to travelers will now be issued solely from Velana International Airport with the implementation of the new dollar system.

Travelers can now book dollars from the Bank of Maldives online dollar booking portal – the BML USD Booking Portal – or from any of the bank’s branches.

The amount of dollars booked will then be issued to travelers from the BML counters located in the departure terminal after they check-in.

Dollars are issued to travelers at the rate of USD 500 per ticket.