Sajeeb Wazed Joy, the Prime Minister's ICT Affairs advisor, formally unveiled "Binimoy", an interoperable digital transaction platform (IDTP) in order to create a cashless society within the following three to four years.
Binimoy is a breakthrough platform for establishing digital financial transactions, a timely initiative among the far-reaching steps taken by the government to build a digital Bangladesh initiative.
It will allow instant money transfers between banks, mobile financial services (MFS) operators, and payment service providers (PSPs).
"Our next target is to build a cashless society," Sajeeb Wazed Joy said in his speech as the chief guest of the launching ceremony of 'Binimoy',.
“Currently around five to six crore village people don't have bank accounts, but we can include them all under banking services before the next election. But if people keep Awami League in power in the next elections, then 100% of the people of Bangladesh will have bank accounts and they will lead cashless lives within the next three or four years,” Joy added.
Joy said we have built a digital Bangladesh now, and we aim to build a cashless society as the entire world will be cashless in the future.
“Cash can be stolen and people face harassment in getting government services or allowances. Even the financing in terrorism and corruption is also held in a cash transaction.
"Entire planning, implementation and everything of 'Digital Bangladesh' has been done with our own initiatives. No foreign agency did any kind of planning whether it is long, short or project planning to implement Digital Bangladesh. We did the entire work," he said.
Now that 50% of the government services have been brought under digitization and hopefully 100% will be adopted within a few years.
State Minister for ICT Ministry Zunaid Ahmed Palak and ICT Division Senior Secretary NM Zeaul Alam addressed the inaugural function as the special guests.
Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder chaired it while BB Director Mezbaul Haque made a presentation explaining the features of the platform.
Facilities of ‘Binimoy'
Previously, Zunaid Ahmed Palak spoke to Dhaka Tribune and said that people will get instant access to all types of payment service providers through Binimoy, and it will give them the freedom to complete financial transactions through any payment gateway.
He added that customers, financial institutions, merchants, government agencies and other payment service providers can operate 24/7 real-time transactions through this system.
Binimoy can lead to revolutionary changes in various public and private services, such as tax submission, bus-train-air ticket purchase, road and bridge toll collection, e-commerce operations, and more.
It will also help reduce transaction costs, increase efficiency and speed up financial transactions.
This platform is going to prevent financial crimes because the exchange authorization standards used in Binimoy will verify each transaction and develop patterns analysis, thereby making it more difficult to launder money, finance terror and evade tax.
Offering a cashless interoperable payment mechanism, Binimoy will boost the e-commerce sector as well.
The exchange system allows customers to transact using virtual IDs instead of their account numbers.
Due to the virtual ID, the customer's account number will be anonymous and secure.
Banks, PSPs, and MFS operators will be covered under this platform and a number of non-bank financial institutions and fintech companies have benefited from technological advances in recent years, and are now offering payment services and other banking services.
Binimoy will connect all banks, MSF providers, and payment services of the country and ensure interoperability of transactions between different payment service providers.
Money can be transferred instantly from one bank account to another bank or PSP/MFS wallet through Binimoy.
Similarly, money can be sent from one PSP/MFS wallet to another PSP/MFS or bank account.
