ONLINE TRANSACTIONS: Lack of digital literacy main barrier
Lack of digital literacy and failure to understand the benefits of mobile financial services are the main obstacles to popularising online transactions, found a study by Women’s World Banking and Rocket, Dutch-Bangla Bank’s mobile wallet.
However, use of brand promoters and peer-to-peer sharing of experiences are effective ways of overcoming the barriers, according to the pilot project, which concluded in the middle of December last year.
The project aimed to understand how to get more garment workers to use digital wallets through Rocket.
The test made use of brand promoters stationed at the bank’s ATM booths outside a number of factories and taught women on how to use the app and share their experiences with peers.
The findings were shared at a discussion titled “Beyond Wage Digitisation: Increasing Account Usage by Women” organised at The Westin Dhaka yesterday by the non-profit working for financial inclusion for low income women in developing economies.
Though mobile phones and the internet have accelerated financial inclusion, gains have been uneven in Bangladesh.
Overall financial inclusion has increased to 50 per cent while mobile wallet usage jumped from 3 to 21 per cent, as per Global Findex, a World Bank database on how people in 144 economies use financial services.
However, growth for women users has not seen the same upward trajectory and the gender gap with regard to access to financial services has grown from 9 per cent to nearly 30 per cent.
Women seemingly find it difficult to access mobile technology due to a lack of digital and financial literacy and a low level of trust and familiarity with digital payments.
Boosting access to, and usage of, mobile wallets in the garment worker sector can accelerate the growing trend of wage digitisation and aid women’s financial inclusion.
The government plans to reach digital wage systems to as many as 90 percent of the population by 2021 as part of its push towards build a cashless society and facilitating financial inclusion of millions of garment workers.
In addition, wage digitisation offers factory owners enhanced efficiency in payroll systems.
“Wage digitisation is an on-ramp to offering a broader range of financial services to low income women,” said Diana Gooley, manager of Digital Financial Services at Women’s World Banking.
This would enable them to attain more financial stability, meet their, and their family’s day-to-day needs and better prepare for the future, she added.
Hidden charges involved in online transactions could deter the general public, seeing as they feel as though they were paying just to withdraw their own money, said Mohammad Abdul Momen, a director of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
When factories bore the costs, workers were more inclined towards online payment services. He said more factories need to join the initiative.
Before a digital wage system was introduced, workers lined up for hours on payday to collect their salaries.
However, after the advent of online transactions, the workers found that it was indeed easier to collect their pay digitally as the money is secure and can be withdrawn at any given time.
Momen also spoke of the need to form a universal platform to receive wages and make payments for any product or service.
Bangladesh Bank Deputy Director Salahuddin Mahmud echoed the sentiment.
The central bank is working on creating a singular platform, which could be completed by the end of the month, to help ease bank-to-bank transactions.
A paradigm shift is required to educate and change people’s views on digital payments, said Abedur Rahman Sikder, chief retail business officer of Dutch-Bangla Bank.
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