Economy to get a boost from m-banking: Atiur
Bangladesh Bank (BB) believes the newly launched mobile phone banking will have a tremendous impact on the society in terms of delivering fastest and reliable services and bringing millions of unbanked people into the banking network.
The country entered the era of mobile banking on Thursday with the launch of the services by tech-savvy Dutch-Bangla Bank.
BB Governor Atiur Rahman said the service will push growth. He also termed the event a 'milestone', saying such an initiative is the key to ensuring 'financial inclusion' and poverty eradication.
“There is no alternative to technology to render fastest and cost effective services. BB's one of the major policies is to ensure the use of modern technology in the rapidly growing financial sector,” the governor said.
Technology is revolutionising every field of human endeavour and activity. The introduction of information technology in the banking industry will lead the way to further growth. Being convinced that technology is the key to improving productivity, the BB took several initiatives to popularise the use of technology by banks.
To materialise this target, Rahman said the BB has introduced online banking, automated cheque clearing house, automated Credit Information Bureau and latest the mobile phone banking.
“Mobile phone banking will act as an alternative to the traditional branch banking. Millions of unbanked people will get the services,” said the governor who took over the central bank's charge in May 2009 with an announcement that he wants to see the BB a 'paperless' place when he will leave.
The governor said the new initiative will take the banking services to the doorstep of the country's poorest people and villagers who cannot afford to open accounts and are deliberately left out of the mainstream financial system. Bangladesh's banking sector is mostly urban-based.
Atiur said mobile banking could revolutionise Bangladesh's financial sector if at least 50 percent of the country's 70 million cell-phone subscribers are brought under the new service.
“People will get accustomed to savings and rural economy will benefit from such banking,” he said.
DBBL introduced the service last week and Trust Bank did it in December in a limited scale. But BRAC Bank is expected to come up with a big bang.
“There will be a massive impact when BRAC Bank will launch the service,” said the governor.
Most of the Asian countries have already introduced mobile banking and Atiur said the service has become so popular in India that it has spurred the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth.
The governor said the introduction of this new service will also prompt banks, micro-credit institutions and mobile phone companies to create a common IT platform to serve millions of urban and rural clients.
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