Following the festive seasons during the first half of the year, the volume of transactions through mobile financial services (MFS) decreased by Tk1,723 crore in August compared to July.
Transactions through MFS dropped to Tk87,446 crore in August from Tk89,169 crore in July, according to data from the central bank.
In contrast, MFS transactions peaked at Tk94,293 crore in June surrounding the festive season of Eid-ul-Azha.
On the other hand, the volume of transactions through MFS reached an all-time high of Tk107,460 crore in April, surrounding the country's biggest festive season of Eid-Ul-Fitr.
Industry insiders said that the decline in transactions is usual, as it has returned to the normal volume of transactions following big festive seasons that were celebrated months earlier.
According to Shamsuddin Haider Dalim, the head of corporate communications at bKash, generally, the amount of transactions through MFS increases surrounding festive seasons, specifically during Eid celebrations, when customers go on a shopping spree.
With Eid-ul-Azha being celebrated at the beginning of July, transactions in June were much higher than in the previous month of May.
However, following the celebrations, the transaction volume returned to normal as before, according to the top brass.
According to MFS provider Upay, the decline in the volume of transactions in August was expected as transactions usually pick up in the festival season and then drop in subsequent months.
In August, merchant payments, where customers make purchases through their MFS account, increased by Tk86 crore month-on-month to Tk3,034.8 crore at the same time.
However, the amount of cash-out, where customers withdraw money from their MFS account, decreased by 9.46% month-on-month to Tk23,983.7 crore in August.
Salary disbursements also decreased by 20% to Tk2,648.9 crore month-on-month in August while utility bill payments increased by 17.82% to Tk 2,262.3 crore.
But despite the decline of overall transaction volume in August, on a year-on-year basis, the amount of MFS transactions increased by 18.5% when compared to the transaction volume during the same month last year.
About 183.2 million users are registered with 13 MFS providers, increasing by 2 million from July.
The MFS providers are Rocket, bKash, MYCash, Islami Bank mCash, Trust Axiata Pay, FSIBL FirstPay SureCash, Upay, OK Wallet, Rupali Bank SureCash, TeleCash, Islamic Wallet, Meghna Bank Tap n' Pay and Nagad.
Earlier this year, Tellimer reported Bangladesh as one of the biggest markets for mobile money globally, with over 110 million users transacting $100 billion over the past year, which was later published on Nasdaq.
More than 110 million individuals in Bangladesh are currently using such services. Of which, 45 million of them are active users and it has become one of the most potent markets, as per the report.
The latest industry data, when compared to 2015, showed that the number of registered mobile money agents had doubled over the period to 1.2 million, while the value of transactions increased six-fold.
The market trend as per industry statistics showed that the acceleration in transactions and transaction value grew from 2020 and onwards, accelerating during and following the pandemic.
The pandemic has considerably increased the usage of bank and MFS accounts and according to industry insiders, the volume of such transactions has been increasing rapidly over the years due to the growing number of customers who rely on MFS for everything from fund transfers to bill payments.
On top of that, the country's young population and the shift towards a digital payments culture provided the right time to add financial products such as loans, insurance and investment and non-financial services such as e-commerce, deliveries and so on to any market player's portfolio.
Additionally, bank account penetration stands at just 53% in Bangladesh, and less than one-third of bank customers have been able to take a bank loan.
Meanwhile, credit card ownership stands at just 1%, and even debit card ownership is only 5%.
Global researchers believe that the data signals a structural shift in the industry away from bilateral peer-to-peer transactions and toward a broader range of use cases.