– Prime Minister’s ICT Affairs Adviser
Sajeeb Wazed Joy yesterday said that the next step of digital Bangladesh is
building a cashless society to ensure transparency, accountability and
mobility in financial transactions.
“The next dream of digital Bangladesh is to make a cashless society.
The blaze service is a part of the cashless society,” he said while
inaugurating the blaze service as the chief guest at a virtual
function.
State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak and Bangladesh Bank Deputy
Governor Jamal Ahmed joined the function as special guests while
Chairman of the Sonali Bank Board of Directors Ziaul Hasan Siddiqui
gave the concluding remarks.
CEO and Managing Director of the Sonali Bank Limited Md. Ataur Rahman
Prodhan delivered the welcome speech.
The blaze service, a joint initiative of Sonali Bank, Homepay and
ITCL, will reduce the tendency of sending money through ‘hundi’ and
will increase further the country’s foreign exchange reserves, official sources said.
Through the service, the hard earned money of expatriates from any
part of the world will be able to send easily and safely within just five
seconds in any time to the country through the blaze service. Sonali
Bank Limited is the first in the banking sector of Bangladesh to
introduce such activities. As a result, expatriates will be able to send
their money easily and the beneficiaries will be able to withdraw the
money from their own banks quickly, the sources added .
In his speech, Joy said under the strong leadership and direction of
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh has achieved significant
success in the development of IT sector in the last 12 years as
part of building a “Digital Bangladesh”.
Information technology has changed the way of people’s living and the
economy around the world and the current situation caused by the
COVID-19 epidemic has multiplied the need and importance of
information technology, he added.
He informed that Bangladesh’s economy has not faced impact of Covid-19
as the country adopted the digitization long ago.
Due to digitization, he said, Bangladesh is performing well than the
other countries during the Covid pandemic.
Bangladesh started various activities, including video conferencing
and e-filling, long ago, just during the Covid pandemic, the country
is actively utilizing it, he added.
In the last 12 years, the ICT Division has achieved unimaginable
success in the banking sector and financial sector of Bangladesh,
including financial inclusion, official sources said.
Due to information technology alone, there are now about four crore
mobile banking customers in the country and the daily turnover of
mobile banking is around Taka 2, 300 crore. The monthly turnover under
BEFTN, RTGS and BACH was Taka 54,490 crore, Taka 1,44,411 crore and
Taka 89,063 crore respectively. Besides, the monthly transactions
through ATMs, POS and IBFT under NPSB amount is around Taka 1,725
crore, Taka 138 crore and Taka 542 crore respectively, the sources added.
The country’s 48 public-private banks have launched online services in
addition to the conventional system. All banks are using electronic
payment switches. Anyone can withdraw money from another bank using
his ATM card.
E-commerce has spread widely in cities and villages. Already more than
5 lakh customers have availed e-commerce services through ‘Ek-Shop’.
‘Ek-Shop’ has included more than one million products on the platform
with the aim of delivering the products of local artisans across the
country.
According to the sources, Blaze is Bangladesh’s first instant, 24×7, 365 days cross-border payment network. Blaze provides bank account deposit service to the
leading 35 banks in Bangladesh in less than 5 seconds.
Blaze ‘spartners are global digital-only payment platforms that want an easy,
safe, fast, and compliant way to transact with residents and
businesses of one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.