Pensioners won't have to line up for payments anymore as the annuity will reach their bank accounts automatically through electronic fund-transfer (ETF) system, officials said.
The government will introduce electronic pension-payment system today (Thursday) under a move they believe meant for making "hassle-free" the pension payment to the ageing retired employees.
The pensioners will get mobile-phone messages about disbursement of their monthly pension into their respective banks and then they can withdraw their money.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith would formally inaugurate the EFT at a programme to be held at the Ministry of Finance (MoF).
To begin with, twenty retirees, mostly CSP (Civil Service of Pakistan) officers, will get paid through the EFT from the inaugural function.
"We've another 100 in the process for such EFT and they will get the fastest and reliable services very soon," said one official familiar with the development.
Sources at the Ministry of Finance told the FE that they had prepared for bringing all pension-holders under this service, but the process would take a little time for a total of over 600,000 pensioners to receive this service for a lack of real-time gross-payment mechanism with the Bangladesh Bank.
They said the central bank had earlier assured them of doing all this within December last.
"We expect that the Bangladesh Bank will install the real-time gross-settlement mechanism shortly to pave the way for EFT for all pensioners," one official at the ministry told the FE.
Earlier, the government made a database for the pensioners to streamline the pension system.
The authorities expect the new system will help ensure hassle-free pension services to the retired government servants and their family members.
The pension-payment system is now believed to be bribe-free, and the ageing people will not suffer anymore, physically or financially, to get their annuity.
Currently, Bangladesh has 657,183 pension-holders with more than 63 per cent males.
And more than 32 per cent of the pensioners are below 60 years of age as there are some pensioners derived from family-pension system.
More than 43 per cent of the total pension-recipients are below 70 years of age while over 24 per cent are above 70 years.
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