The National Board of Revenue has proposed forming an inter-departmental technical coordination committee to protect electronic transactions under the new value-added tax law from cyber frauds.
The committee will provide guidelines on cyber security under the VAT online project to ensure safe electronic payments, according to the proposal sent to the Bank and Financial Institutions Division.
The new VAT and Supplementary Duty Act will come into effect from July this year. Then all the procedures including registration, payment, return filing, refund and law enforcement process will be brought under online system.
The NBR has taken up the move amid the rise of cyber threats to the e-transactions in the country’s banking system.
Recently, hackers stole more than $100m from Bangladesh Bank’s account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, one of the largest bank heists in history.
Skimming debit cards, a total of over Tk20 lakh was also stolen from ATM booths of different banks in Dhaka by another group just days before the Bangladesh Bank theft.
According to the NBR proposal, the committee will be headed by a deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank, and the members will include representatives from finance ministry, Controller General of Accounts, Information and Communication Technology Division, Access to Information project of Prime Minister’s Office, NBR, IT department heads of commercial banks and deputy director of VAT online project.
“The committee is to provide guidelines on cyber security along with ensuring integration of VAT e-payment system with Integrated Budget and Accounting System (iBAS), commercial banks and other relevant systems,” said an NBR official.
“The committee will also work to make sure that VAT online system is inter-operable with other systems so that no problem happens during interface stages,” he added.