What are unlicensed investment apps?
These are mobile apps or websites that promise a daily or weekly profit on money you deposit, or offer income for doing small “tasks”. “Unlicensed” means they hold no licence from any Bangladeshi regulator to handle people’s money.
You send money to unknown people behind the app, and in return you get only a balance on the app’s screen. You usually hold no shares, no deposit receipt and no legal contract.
Say Sohel, a college student, sees a post in a Facebook group: put Tk 2,000 into an app and profit is added every day. A few days later he manages to withdraw Tk 300, so he trusts it, puts in another Tk 10,000 and talks two friends into joining. When he next tries to withdraw, he is told to pay an “unlock fee” first, and soon after the app stops opening altogether. Sohel does not know who has his money or where to complain. This is an imaginary example.
How it works
Most such apps follow the same pattern. You are asked to “invest” a small amount, and a balance inside the app grows with daily profits. At first you are allowed to withdraw small sums, which builds trust. Then you are told that buying a bigger “package” or bringing in new people will raise your earnings.
The balance on the app’s screen is just a number; there is usually no real business or asset behind it. People who withdraw are paid out of newcomers’ money. When new money slows, withdrawals first hit a “temporary problem”, a “tax” or an “unlock fee”, and then the app or website suddenly disappears.
Money is usually sent to a personal mobile banking number or personal account, not to a company. The operators are often abroad or hide who they are, so once the platform shuts, getting money back is almost impossible.
At 2% a day compounded, Tk 10,000 would on paper grow to roughly Tk 1.38 crore (Tk 13.8 million) in a year. No lawful business grows money like that. Bank FDRs paid roughly 5–12% a year over 2020–2026. The more unrealistic the promised rate, the higher the risk.
Common forms
- Daily-profit investment apps
- Buy a package and earn a fixed daily profit; often wrapped in stories about mining, farming, e-commerce or “AI trading”.
- Earn-by-tasks or clicks
- Commission for watching videos, writing reviews or “clicking” products; bigger tasks require you to deposit your own money.
- Unlicensed online trading
- Platforms for forex, commodity or “share” trading with no licence in Bangladesh; often sold alongside “guaranteed signals”.
- Unlicensed loan apps
- Easy loans at punishing rates, with access to your contacts and photos, and harassment or blackmail if you fall behind.
How to check a licence
In Bangladesh, almost any organisation that handles people’s money needs a licence from a regulator, and regulators list their licensees on their own websites. Do not rely on a certificate the platform shows you; look the name up on the regulator’s own site.
- Bangladesh Bank
- Banks, finance companies, mobile financial services (MFS) and payment service providers. Lending or running payment services without approval is punishable under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act 2024.
- BSEC (Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission)
- Stockbrokers, merchant banks, asset managers and mutual funds. If a platform talks about investing in shares or funds, look here.
- IDRA (Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority)
- Life and general insurers. If something is sold as “insurance” or a “policy”, look here.
- MRA (Microcredit Regulatory Authority)
- Microfinance institutions. If a platform takes savings or offers microloans, look here.
Warning signs
- Guaranteed daily or weekly profit
- Lawful investments almost never promise this.
- Paying a personal number
- No account in a company’s name; money goes to personal mobile wallets or bank accounts.
- Blocked withdrawals
- Being asked for a “tax”, “verification fee” or “level upgrade” before you can withdraw.
- Pressure to recruit
- Referral bonuses, team levels, “leader” titles.
- Misused regulator names or logos
- Using Bangladesh Bank’s or international bodies’ logos to look trustworthy; Bangladesh Bank has publicly warned about this.
- Contact only through messaging apps or social media groups
- No office, address or named responsible person.
What return to expect
The rate an app shows is not a return; it is only a promise. What you actually get depends on when you joined and when the platform shut down. Some early joiners manage to withdraw; most people do not get even their principal back.
Unlicensed platforms offer no deposit protection, no investor protection and no regulated complaints route. Loan apps carry the opposite risk: you may have to repay far more than you borrowed, along with threats to leak your personal data.
Why people choose it
- As an investment it has no reliable advantage. Whatever a lawful app can do (savings, a BO account, insurance) can be done through a licensed institution’s own app.
Points to weigh
- High risk of losing everything; the legal route to recovery is hard and slow.
- Your national ID, photos and phone data can be misused.
- If you bring in friends and family, their losses weigh on you too.
- Dealing with unlicensed platforms can itself cause legal trouble, especially when money goes abroad.
Tax
Tax planning hardly applies here. Any gain is in principle part of your total income, but income from an illegal source, or money lost to one, cannot be reported or set off the way a lawful investment can.
Sending money to foreign platforms also raises foreign-exchange control issues; money cannot be sent abroad except for approved purposes.
Tax rules can change with each year’s Finance Act. Before a big decision, check the latest rules or speak to a tax adviser.
How to get started
- Before paying any app or platform, note its full name, address and which regulator licenses it.
- Look the name up in the list on that regulator’s own website (Bangladesh Bank, BSEC, IDRA, MRA).
- If you cannot find it, or have doubts, do not pay, and do not share personal details or OTPs.
- If you have already paid, do not send any more, not even a “withdrawal fee”.
- Keep screenshots, transaction receipts and numbers, and report to the police or the police cyber crime unit.
Check before you start
- Is the organisation’s name on the regulator’s own website list?
- Am I paying a company, or someone’s personal number?
- Is the promised return many times what banks or sanchayapatra pay?
- Am I being asked to pay more in order to withdraw?
- Is there pressure to bring in new people?
- Could I manage if I lost all of this money?