Mobile phone banking client accounts in the country has almost doubled since March this year, said Bangladesh Bank (BB) governor Atiur Rahman on Thursday.The number of mobile phone banking client accounts in the country has now increased to 7.21 million from 4.6 million in March, he said while addressing a session on the closing day of the three-day 2013 Global Policy Forum of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion at Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, according to a message received here.
Atiur said mobile banking in Bangladesh is likely to get a boost due to the potential of rapid expansion of services like deposit taking, loan disbursement and loan recovery. Although mobile phone banking transactions in Bangladesh comprise mainly money transfer services, other services like deposit taking, loan disbursement and loan recovery are going to expand very fast after the complex phase of setting up secure, glitch-free software and connectivity is completed, he said.
Atiur also noted that the Bangladesh Bank and Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Council are in constant touch with each other for the quick expansion of mobile phone banking in the country.
“The understanding in discussions between the two regulators is that the Telcos regulator will oversee operations of Telcos network services in the bank-telco partnerships for mobile phone-based financial services, while BB will regulate the financial side of the mobile phone-based financial services in the bank-telco partnerships,” he added. Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya Njuguna Ndung’u moderated the session. – UNB
