Since the Covid-19 pandemic, people are preferring cashless transactions which have brought about a boom in growing mobile financial service (MFS) activities and transaction volume in the country.
The latest data of Bangladesh Bank show that more than Tk 3000 crore is being transacted daily on an average through MFS like bKash, Rocket, and others.
According to Bangladesh Bank, in July – the first month of the current financial year – customers have transacted Tk 89,167 crore through mobile banking.
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However, information of Nagad has not been added here. Adding the cash account will increase the transaction volume by another Tk 22,000 crore. Accordingly, MFS transactions will stand at around Tk 1.11 lakh crore. The daily transaction, then stood at Tk 3700 crore.
Sector insiders say that with the convenience of sending money everywhere instantly through mobile banking, new services are being added, including shopping, salary, and allowances of workers, payment of various bills, and loan disbursement.
As a result, people’s interest as well as dependence on mobile financial services (MFS) like bKash, Rocket, Nagad is increasing. The volume of transactions with customers is also increasing. Mobile banking now has more than 18 crore customers.
Recently, the central bank has increased the limit of mobile banking transactions considering the growing demand of customers.
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Now, through MFS customers can deposit Tk 30,000 from agents and Tk 50,000 from bank accounts or cards per day.
Earlier daily deposits could not exceed Tk 30,000. The limit of depositing money from the card was also not fixed. Now one customer can send Tk 2 lakh per month to another. Earlier this limit was Tk 75,000.
Md Serajul Islam, executive director and spokesperson of Bangladesh Bank told UNB that considering convenient transaction opportunities and encouraging a cashless society, the central bank is gradually easing transactions through MFS.
“E-commerce and online trading and payment system is growing in the country to require the need of people special in the urban life, the BB has increased the limit of transaction volume,” he added.
Currently, 13 banks are providing mobile banking services in the country under different names including bKash, Rocket, Ucash, MyCash, SureCash. At the end of July 2022, the number of customers registered in mobile banking is over 18.11 crore.
Among them, there are 10.7 crore customers in villages and 8.4 crore customers in urban areas. Apart from this, among the registered 10.43 crore are male and 7.64 crore female customers. The number of mobile banking agents stood at 15.26 lakh till July, 2022.
Source: United News of Bangladesh