Wedge use case
Private share transfers
Form 117 transfer plus physical or dematerialised share certificate handover. Hold.bd holds the agreed amount in trust until the registrar update is confirmed, then releases on a verified transfer.
Commercial-bank powered
Bangladesh's first
online escrow
for high-value deals.
Funds sit in segregated trust accounts at a Bangladeshi scheduled commercial bank under Bangladesh Bank's 2023 Merchant Acquiring and Escrow guideline. Hold.bd is the platform, the banks are listed partners, never the masthead.
- Reality
- Track B + C live
- Legal foundation, AI + human support shipped 13 May 2026
- Wedge
- Share transfers
- Private company Form 117 closings and founder secondaries
- Fee floor
- 0.6%
- Above ৳ 50 crore, declining tiers from 2.5%
Escrow ID
HLD-2026-014782
FundedTier 1.5%
Held in a partner-bank trust account, Dhaka
BB MAES 2023
- M-01Form 117 lodged with RJSC৳ 24,00,000
- M-02Share certificate handover verified৳ 36,00,000
- M-03Registrar update confirmed৳ 60,00,000
- M-0430-day no-encumbrance window৳ 60,00,000
audit chain · sha-256
8f3ac1…b921Escrow size
৳ 1,80,00,000
Fee tier
1.5%
Released
৳ 60,00,000
On hold
৳ 1,20,00,000
What is Hold.bd
A bank-agnostic escrow platform,
governed by a Bangladeshi bank's license.
Hold.bd is operated by KaritKarma Limited and provides the technology, KYC, dispute, and audit infrastructure. Funds are held by partner scheduled commercial banks in segregated trust accounts, never by Hold.bd. The site chrome stays neutral, and each transaction routes to a named partner bank whose deposit-instruction details flow through to the buyer at the moment of funding.
The platform is designed for transactions where parties cannot rely on prior trust. The wedge use case is private company share transfers, where deals routinely run into crores and Form 117 handover today carries real counterparty risk. M&A closings through exit.bd, broker-mediated deals, and high-value merchandise contracts share the same flow.
Bank-custodial, not custodial-bank
Hold.bd never touches user funds. Money sits in segregated trust accounts at a Bangladeshi scheduled commercial bank under the partner-bank's license, governed by BB's 2023 Merchant Acquiring and Escrow Service Guideline.
No cash, identity-bound deposits
Cheque, BEFTN, NPSB, RTGS, or EFT only. The depositor name must match the buyer's KYC identity. Reference numbers are tracked end-to-end so a misrouted deposit is detectable on the next reconciliation pass.
Signed agreement at KYC
Every approved user signs a Hold.bd User Agreement at KYC submission, generated by QuestPDF in personal and corporate variants. Always-re-sign on a new published Terms version. The signed PDF is part of the audit trail.
Formal dispute, not chat
Disputes raise a formal case with evidence submission, mediation, and arbitration escalation. The platform never authorises autonomous disbursement and never gives legal advice, the AI agent's guardrails block both.
A KaritKarma product. Built on Wenme identity and Darwan authorisation. Comms by Postal.hold.bd · operated by KaritKarma Limited
Where Hold.bd works
Built for the deals
where trust is a problem.
Hold.bd's strongest commercial wedge is private share transfers, where there is no CDBL equivalent and Form 117 handover today is a leap of faith. The same primitives serve M&A closings and broker-mediated deals.
M&A closings
Business acquisitions via exit.bd
exit.bd's M&A marketplace integrates as the primary API partner. Deal milestones from LOI to closing route through Hold.bd escrow, with broker commission disbursed at release.
Two-party + broker
Broker-mediated deals
Any KYC-verified user can act as a broker. Commission is flat BDT or a percentage, paid by buyer, seller, or split. Transparent or confidential visibility is set on creation.
The fund flow
Money moves through a bank,
not through Hold.bd.
Hold.bd directs the bank's trust account, never holds the money. That is the difference between an escrow platform that Bangladesh Bank can govern and one that quietly accumulates custodial risk.
Buyer to partner-bank trust accountBEFTN · NPSB · RTGS
Hold.bd reconciles + transitions to FundedOps console
Bank disburses to seller, less the tiered feeOn verified release
- Step 01
Open the escrow
Buyer or seller creates the escrow on hold.bd, defines milestones, names the broker if any, and pulls the partner-bank deposit instructions from the platform.
- Step 02
Deposit to the trust account
Buyer transfers funds by Cheque, BEFTN, NPSB, RTGS, or EFT. The depositor name must match the buyer's KYC identity. Buyer uploads the proof of payment.
- Step 03
Hold.bd verifies and the bank confirms
Bank notifies Hold.bd ops, admin verifies via the console. The escrow transitions to Funded once the deposit is reconciled against the upload.
- Step 04
Release on verified milestones
Each milestone is verified by both parties or an independent arbitrator. On release, Hold.bd instructs the partner bank to disburse via BEFTN, NPSB, or RTGS, minus the tiered fee.
Hold.bd vs the alternatives
The middle ground that
actually exists in Bangladesh.
Informal hundi escrow has no enforceable agreement. Bank Letters of Credit lock you to one institution and one trade use case. International platforms cannot receive BDT into a Bangladeshi trust account. Hold.bd sits between the three.
| Capability | Hold.bd | Hundi escrow | Bank LC | Escrow.com |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Funds held in a Bangladesh-regulated trust account | ||||
| Bank-agnostic, not locked to one institution | n/a | |||
| Formal dispute resolution with mediation and arbitration | ||||
| Signed BDT user agreement enforceable in Bangladeshi courts | ||||
| Built for private share transfers and Form 117 closings | ||||
| Identity-bound deposits, no cash, remitter name match |
AI + Human support, 24/7
A read-only AI agent on the platform. A human on the queue.
The chat agent runs on Llama 4 Scout via Groq with seven read-only tools. It can answer policy questions, read your escrow status, and quote the fee for an amount. It cannot authorise a release, give legal advice, or look up another user's data. Anything it cannot handle escalates to the admin queue with the full conversation.
Shipped 13 May 2026 as Track B of the Hold.bd positioning launch.
- Anonymous FAQ, authenticated Q&A, and transaction-context modes
- Llama 4 Scout on Groq, with 7 read-only party-scoped tools
- Auto-escalation on PII leak attempts and cross-user lookups
- PendingAdmin queue with atomic claim and 2-hour reclaim
- 10/hr anonymous and 50/hr authenticated rate ceilings
The plumbing
Production stack, audited at every layer.
Six containers in production on the deploy.bitspath.com cluster, fronted by Traefik, with Wenme handling identity and Darwan handling authorisation decisions.
- Backend
- .NET 10 Web API, Clean Architecture + CQRS
- Frontend
- Next.js 16, React 19, Tailwind 4
- Database
- PostgreSQL 18 via EF Core, snake_case
- Auth
- Wenme OAuth 2.1 with PKCE
- Authorisation
- Darwan policy decisions
- Comms
- Postal SMTP, in-platform only
- Storage
- MinIO, S3-compatible
- Jobs
- Hangfire idle-resolve + reclaim
Frequently asked
The questions every buyer
and seller asks first.
Answers are intentionally short. The signed user agreement is the authoritative document, and your relationship manager will walk you through the longer form when you engage.
- What is Hold.bd?
- Hold.bd is Bangladesh's first online escrow platform, designed for private share transfers, M&A closings, and broker-mediated high-value deals. Funds sit in segregated trust accounts at a Bangladeshi scheduled commercial bank under Bangladesh Bank's 2023 Merchant Acquiring and Escrow Service Guideline. Hold.bd itself is not a bank and never holds money directly.
- Is Hold.bd licensed?
- Hold.bd operates under its partner bank's license today, with parallel banking partnerships under negotiation. The platform is positioned to obtain its own Payment Service Provider or Payment Service Operator authorisation as transaction volume grows. Every transaction is governed by a signed user agreement enforceable in Bangladeshi courts.
- Which banks does Hold.bd work with?
- Hold.bd is bank-agnostic. The architecture supports a list of partner banks, each holding their own segregated trust accounts, with per-merchant or per-transaction routing. Banks are listed partners, never the masthead. New banks join the platform by adding a partner record, not by re-branding the platform.
- How does the share transfer flow work?
- The buyer deposits the agreed amount into the partner-bank trust account, the seller executes Form 117 and transfers the share certificate, Hold.bd verifies the registrar update, then funds release to the seller. If the registrar update fails or the shares carry undisclosed encumbrances, the dispute system escalates to mediation or arbitration before any release.
- What is the dispute process?
- Either party can file a formal dispute. Both sides submit evidence inside the platform. A mediation phase aims for consensual resolution, and unresolved disputes escalate to arbitration. Hold.bd never authorises autonomous disbursement, every release requires verified milestone completion or a binding arbitration outcome.
- How much does Hold.bd charge?
- Fees are tiered by escrow size, from 2.5% on transactions up to five lakh down to 0.6% on transactions above fifty crore. The fee is deducted from the release amount before disbursement to the seller. There are no monthly minimums and no charges to open an account.
Start with one escrow
Run a real BDT escrow before
your next high-value deal.
Open an escrow, deposit by BEFTN or RTGS, watch a milestone release end-to-end. Every step is on-platform, every event is in the audit chain.
For institutions
Scheduled commercial banks, NBFIs, and merchant-acquiring platforms can host trust accounts on Hold.bd's multi-bank rail. Float interest stays with the bank by design. Fee splits are negotiated per partnership.
- Default split
- 60 / 40, fees to platform
- Float interest
- 100% to bank