ACI partnership with bKash to expand financial inclusion among rural population

FE Desk
Advanced Chemical Industries (ACI Ltd), the leading integrator of agricultural inputs in Bangladesh and bKash Limited, the largest mobile financial service provider in the country signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Tuesday for facilitating farmers to pay through bKash while purchasing products from ACI Agribusiness.
Dr F H Ansarey, Managing Director & CEO, ACI Agribusiness & Mizanur Rashid, Chief Commercial Officer, bKash, signed the MoU on behalf of their respective organizations.
Under this understanding, ACI's digital platforms will develop offers and collect payment for agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, farm mechanization & animal health products) from farmers through bKash.
ACI will promote bKash among its customers as preferred payment channel. Users of 'Fosholi' will soon be given direct access to bKash app seamlessly.
Besides, selected retailers of ACI Agribusiness will be enrolled as bKash merchants to allow bKash payment for their customers.
Fosholi, currently being used by more than 0.1 million farmers, is the only digital platform that disseminates quality advisory based on geo-data and remote sensing on field crops to farmers, retailers, dealers, public & private sector extension officials.
In addition to 'Fosholi', ACI is now developing another platform 'Rupali' for the aquaculture community, to be released in the later part of this year, with a number of agriculture sub-sector specific digital platforms currently in the pipeline.
ACI Agribusiness Managing Director & CEO, Dr. F H Ansarey said: "From now on, ACI Agribusiness will be able to offer more payment choices to the farmers we serve by accepting payment from bKash. We hope, the partnership with bKash will help us expand financial inclusion among the rural population."
bKash Chief Commercial Officer, Mizanur Rashid said " The partnership adds tremendous value for the farmers as it will allow them to easily pay for agro inputs and services and receive instant payments for the sale of the goods through bKash. The hassle-free payments save the farmers' time and money and allow them to make optimum use of the inputs."
'Fosholi' won the champion award in agriculture category in National ICT Award 2018 from BASIS & Merit Award in industrial solutions category in 18th APICTA Award held in Guangzhou, China in last October.
During the signing ceremony from ACI, Md. Monir Hossain Khan FCA, Finance Director, Shamim Murad, GM, Digital Strategy & Faiyead Ahmedul Hye, Senior Manager, Contents and Business Development and from bKash, Masrur Chowdhury, Head of Alternative Channels & Muhammad Tariqul Islam Khan, Deputy General Manager of Commercial Division were present.