Nagad brings down fund withdrawal fee
Nagad yesterday brought down its fund withdrawal fee to Tk 9.99 for every Tk 1,000, making it the lowest rate to be charged by the country's mobile financial service (MFS) providers.
The charge will be Tk 12.99 for the customers who rely on short codes rather than using mobile application of the mobile financial arm of the Postal Department for cash-out. Fifteen per cent value added tax will be applicable on both the charges.
"After launching the cheapest charge, MFS transaction rose by 62 per cent in a month," said Tanvir A Mishuk, managing director of Nagad, at a press meet at Hotel InterContinental Dhaka.
"We have come to a conclusion that if you provide the cheapest rate, it prompts financial inclusion. So, we have launched the new charge rate."
Nagad has removed all the conditions and made the offer available for all sizes of the fund, making the cost of using Nagad more affordable than ever before and to accelerate the digitalisation of financial transactions in Bangladesh, he said.
"We have always been against high cash-out charges. We think that the cash-out charge of Tk 20 per Tk 1,000, which has been prevalent for the last decade, is an injustice to customers."
That is why Nagad has been offering the lowest cash-out charge to customers since its inception, he said.
The success of Nagad is an example of how well a public-private partnership can be, said Mustafa Jabbar, posts and telecom minister, who joined the press meet through a digital platform.
"This low cash-out charge would accelerate the digital transaction."
The announcement came at a time when the MFSs got a shot in the arm as millions of people are using their service amid the coronavirus which prompted digital transactions.
Earlier, Nagad introduced Tk 6 as the charge for every Tk 1,000 cash-out for five types of small business entities to cut their cost of doing business during the coronavirus pandemic.
The country's MFS transaction amount stood at Tk 49,121 crore in September, up 18.6 per cent from the previous month and up 38.63 per cent year-on-year, according to Bangladesh Bank data.
This is the second highest amount since July when the country's 15 MFS providers posted a record amount of Tk 62,999 crore.
The number of active MFS accounts rose 19.32 per cent year-on-year to 4.10 crore in September as people are now preferring the digital financial tools more than ever to carry out banking from home.
Nagad's announcement came after a successful pilot project carried out by the mobile financial service provider in Bangladesh from October 1.
Nagad added 70 lakh new customers since the pandemic hit the country taking the number of its customers to over 2.5 crore and making its fastest-growing MFS provider in Bangladesh.
Launched on March 26, 2019, Nagad now has 1.78 lakh agents, 186 distributors and 10,978 merchants.
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