Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Raghuram Rajan expressed admiration for Bangladesh’s successes with mobile and agent banking services, saying he was eager to learn from the country’s experience.
“I want to learn more about mobile financial services from Bangladesh, especially how transactions are made easy using a simple mobile telephone set,” the RBI governor said.
He was speaking at a question and answer session with reporters at the opening ceremony of the SAARCFINANCE Governors’ Symposium on Financial Inclusion held yesterday in the capital.
“I don’t want to make any suggestions about Bangladesh’s economy or central bank activities, but I am eager to learn from Bangladesh about mobile banking,” he said.
Bangladesh Bank (BB) is the recipient of an international award for promoting financial inclusion policies.
In September last year, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), a global network of financial policy makers from developing and emerging countries, awarded BB for its outstanding contribution to policy making for mobile banking.
The central bank took initiatives in early 2010 to provide financial services to the unbanked population in rural, urban and remote areas.
BB also issued Guidelines on Mobile Financial Services for Banks in 2011.
The policy has created a conducive environment for mobile banking services to flourish. Mobile banking services are a bank-led model and BB is the regulatory authority. Banks appoint distributors and agents to run the operations.
The BB has so far allowed 28 banks to offer mobile banking services. Mobile banking users and transactions are increasing rapidly in the country mainly in rural areas due to the easy and hassle-free service.
Average daily money transactions through mobile financial services reached a new height in March, exceeding Tk400 crore.
Transactions rose significantly in March when they hit a record high of Tk12,264 crore, according to Bangladesh Bank data.
The daily transaction amount, usually in the Tk200 crore to Tk300 crore range, climbed to around Tk409 crore in March. The number of mobile accounts stood at 10.8 million while the number of clients was 25.2 million during the month.