If there is any lesson to be learned from the last two years of weathering the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s that total digitization of monetary transactions for Bangladeshis is within grasp. With the exponential growth of mobile financial services in the last five years or so, it is clear that the nation is ready to embrace digital banking earnest.
Which is why it is all the more reason to be optimistic that Bangladesh Bank has been actively discussing the formation of digital banks to the point that has been forming regulatory guidelines to pave the way for them.
While digital banking has been around in our country for a long time, digital banks are different as they rely entirely on an online infrastructure for every facet of their operations, not limited to transactions, without the need of traditional physical branches.
If implemented well, this has the potential to create a sea change in our country.
Not only would this reinforce digital banking as the de facto mode of monetary transactions, it would also force holdover traditional banks to finally enter the digital fray.
But the biggest impact that digital banks stand to have is by increasing financial inclusion. Those who work in the informal sector still rely on hard cash when it comes to being paid, digital banks can go a long way in bypassing the dangers that analog banking entails especially for vulnerable groups.
We hope the government takes further steps to integrate digital banking further into the mainstream and leave the age-old customs of traditional banking behind. Our infrastructure is already proven in accommodating digital banks, we just have to facilitate them.
