Nagad could be the lone cash cow of postal department
The government's postal department has been a loss-making concern throughout its operations spanning two centuries but it finally made a profit from one of its services for the first time in the last fiscal year -- thanks to Nagad.
Nagad is a joint venture between the Bangladesh Post Office and Third Wave Technologies. The postal department owns a 51 per cent stake.
The country's fastest-growing mobile financial service yesterday shared Tk 1.12 crore with the postal department as part of its earnings, said the MFS provider in a press release.
Tanvir Ahmed Mishuk, managing director of the venture, handed over a cheque to Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar at a programme at the newly built Postal Building in Dhaka.
Nagad shared the amount as part of the service revenue, which is counted as the postal department's net income, for the just-concluded fiscal year.
The postal department runs 16 services, including the digital financial service through Nagad. But it has never received net income from any of its other services until yesterday.
The situation changed for the better in just one and a half year's journey of Nagad.
What is more, the postal department's income came without making any investment into the venture because of the public-private partnership nature of the service, said Nagad.
In the first year after independence, the postal department started with losses of Tk 1.6 crore and the deficit has widened every year ever since.
In the 2018-19 financial year, the deficit between the revenue and expenditure was Tk 433 crore, down from Tk 438 crore a year ago. The figures for the last fiscal year have not been published yet but it is expected to keep up the unprofitable trend.
But with the introduction of digital financial service, the entire postal department seems to have got an opportunity to start anew. The MFS service, which has been growing at a breathtaking speed, could even be the main earnings source for the government agency.
"This is a historic moment. I have never thought that the postal department could pull off this feat," said Mustafa Jabbar.
"But the revival of the postal department has begun with Nagad. I believe the postal department will make a turnaround in the future."
Mishuk said, "From the very beginning, we have designed our services giving utmost importance to citizens' needs. That is why Nagad has been able to come up with the latest services at the lowest costs."
The Asian-Pacific Postal Union recognised Nagad as the world's fastest-growing digital financial service within a year of its rollout, he said.
Md Nur-Ur-Rahman, secretary of the posts and telecommunications department, and Sudhangshu Shekhar Bhadra, director-general of the Directorate of Posts, were present on the occasion.
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