The number of active mobile wallet users rose about 9 percent month-on-month to 1.22 crore in June, indicating that more people are using personal wallets instead of relying on agents, central bank data shows.

New services, customer awareness and strict agent monitoring boosted the use of personal wallets, said Asif Ahmed, head of marketing at bKash, Bangladesh's largest mobile financial service provider and the world's second largest.

The Eid festivities might have spiked the numbers, as many people made purchases through their mobile wallets, said industry insiders.

Discouraging agents from conducting business transactions through personal wallets, and introducing new service such as mobile top-up, utility bill payments, and salary disbursement also contributed to the growth, Ahmed said.

“The scope of mobile financial services has been broadened beyond sending and receiving money and that has created more active mobile money users.”

A bKash user can pay for mobile credit recharge, retail purchases, hospital bills as well as air tickets and taxi fares from their accounts, said Ahmed.

As of June, some Tk 12,970 crore was transacted through mobile banking, while daily average transactions were Tk 432.31 crore, central bank data shows.

The amount transacted in May was Tk 12,602 crore, with daily average transaction worth about Tk 420.05 crore.

The number of registered customers increased 2.92 percent to 2.86 crore in June from the previous month.

However, despite the upward trend in personal mobile wallet use, a large number of registered mobile banking accountholders do not use their own accounts and rather rely on agents for money transfer.

A recent study by Telenor, the major shareholder of Grameenphone, found that of the people that transact money through mobiles, only 5 percent have their own accounts in Bangladesh, even though it is a major player in mobile banking.

The number is 97 percent in Kenya, 72 percent in Tanzania and 70 percent in Uganda.

The central bank has made it mandatory for customers to use their own mobile wallets for transactions, and has forbidden agents from using personal wallets for business related payments.

“A behavioural change is necessary to convince more people to use their own accounts. We have already started a mass media campaign that we hope will make a big change in mobile money adoption,” Ahmed said.