Govt to form independent board to run Nagad

The government will form an independent board to run mobile financial service provider Nagad, Finance Adviser Salehuddin Ahmed said yesterday.

The decision came from a high-level meeting of the interim government.

Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur, Attorney General Md Asaduzzaman, and ICT Policy Adviser Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb were also present at the meeting held in Dhaka.

"We identified the irregularities at Nagad, and all of a sudden, a group took over the MFS provider. The government is going to take action against them," the finance adviser told The Daily Star.

The postal department will not manage the MFS, despite being Nagad's parent entity; instead, an independent board will run the service, he added.

Md Shafayet Alam, who assumed the role of CEO of Nagad, will have to step down because the takeover was illegal, according to the finance adviser.

Read more

Nagad logs Tk 34,000 crore transactions in March

During a press briefing on Saturday, Bangladesh Bank Executive Director and spokesperson Arief Hossain Khan said that further fraudulent activities could have occurred at the mobile financial service provider.

Because individuals previously implicated in fraud cases are now operating the platform, which serves a client base of around 9.5 crore, according to Khan.

The High Court stayed the activities of the central bank-appointed administrator, Motasem Billah, on May 7 this year, following a petition by one of Nagad's former directors.

In the absence of the administrator, former Nagad director Md Shafayet Alam assumed the role of CEO, despite facing fraud charges in a case filed by the Bangladesh Bank.