Universal pension scheme now payable from Nagad

Mobile financial service provider Nagad Ltd signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with National Pension Authority (NPA) recently, enabling customers to choose pension schemes and pay monthly instalments from its app.

Mohammad Aminul Haque, executive director of Nagad, and Kabirul Ezdani Khan, executive chairman of the NPA, inked the MoU at a hotel in Dhaka, Nagad said in a press release.

"We believe that the customer base for the pension scheme will exceed billions the same as Nagad's…Moreover, charges for payments in the pension scheme will be reduced," said Haque.

On August 17, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the pension scheme for all citizens aged between 18 and 50 years, excluding government employees, on the basis of their national identity cards.

There are four different schemes – Progoti for employees of private companies, Surokkha for people working in the informal sector such as farmers, Somota for people who currently earn a maximum of Tk 60,000 a year, and Probash for Bangladeshi citizens working or living abroad.