Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman said Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) will accelerate business activities as well as ensure good governance.
The system will facilitate check clearing of large amount instantly which will have positive impact on the country’s economy, he said while addressing a seminar on “Development of payment systems in Bangladesh: payment and remittance through Real Time Gross Settlement” presenting as the chief guest.
Bangladesh Bank in association with Asian Development Bank jointly held the seminar at a city hotel in the capital yesterday.
Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor Nazneen Sultana chaired the event while Bank and Financial Institutions Division Secretary M Aslam Alam attended it as special guest.
The government banks are still lagging behind despite providing digital services, said Alam. He hoped that all state-owned banks will be fully digitised by the year 2016 as the government has taken up some projects in this regard.
He said the problems that businessmen faced during check clearing of large amount have been solved because of introduction of RTGS system.
The central bank has launched the system on October 21 to facilitate business activities.
A total of 55 banks have participated in RTGS system and clients of 5,000 online branches of those banks are entitled to get the service from the first day. Currently, 56 banks have a total of 9,000 branches and all will come under the RTGS system gradually.
The inter bank transaction of Tk1 lakh and above will be held instantly through the new system. A total of five foreign currencies as well as local currency will be entitled to transect under the system.
Bangladesh RTGS is implemented under the project of Institutional Support for Migrant Worker’s Remittances, Component A: Remittance and Payment Infrastructure Development with the financial assistance of Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The RTGS can be defined as the continuous (real-time) settlement of funds transfer individually on an order-by-order basis (without netting).
“Real time” means processing of instructions at the time they are received rather than at some later time while “Gross Settlement” refers to the settlement of funds individually without netting with other transactions.