Reduction of duty structure on import of accessories demanded
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Raihan M Chowdhury
Industry experts have demanded of the government to reduce duty structure on import of accessories to help accelerate the growth of an IT-driven banking transactions.
"A good number of foreign companies are ready to invest more in Bangladesh, but you have to attract them by slashing the huge duty-structure on import of accessories like security paper," Sandeep Sethi, marketing manager of NCR Global Holdings Ltd (middle east, Africa and APAC) told the FE Monday.
At present the import duty on security paper is 59 per cent.
"It is too high…the tax should not remain at such level on a core necessity as banking automation is no more a luxury item," Mr Sandeep added.
He said the tax rate is very high in Bangladesh in compare with other neighbouring countries as far as banking automation products is concerned making the companies' efforts tough with the cost of business going up.
He visited Bangladesh to see the progress of banking sector's automation jobs being done by NCR's local partner company, Technomedia Limited.
The rapid spread of ATMs in Dhaka and Chittagong is transforming the way the country's banking operations, with time consuming cash transactions no longer being conducted by human tellers.
In the past few years the number of ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) has jumped from a handful in the capital to around 1500 nationwide, the majority in Dhaka and Chittagong.
Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd (DBBL) tops the list in using the ATMs.
"Consumers now prefer to use ATMs for withdrawing cash and printing their recent banking transactions rather than deal with a human teller," said Joshoda Jibon Deb Nath, managing director of Technomedia Limited.
Commenting on the progress of Bangladesh's journey towards a digital era, the NCR executive said, apart from reducing duty structure on import of raw materials of the accessories, the country must improve the infrastructure and create strong awareness among the stakeholders on using IT devices.
Technomedia Ltd, a leading supplier and service provider in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the country is working hard under a Bangladesh Bank project to introduce MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) technology for bank cheques clearing and processing.
All scheduled banks will include MICR code in their cheques as per Bangladesh Automated Clearing House (BACH) compliance to end forgery in the paper-based payment transfer system.
MICR is the common machine language specification for the paper-based payment transfer system. It consists of magnetic ink printed characters of a special design which can be recognized by high speed magnetic recognition equipment.
Cheque standardisation, MICR encode and size & measurement are the basic components of BACH.
Donor-funded BACH will be established with a cost of $ 16 million.
Technomedia Ltd has been working since 2005 as NCR Bangladesh representative.
"The latest MICR technology, once implemented will help the central bank carry out clearing and processing activities very quickly to save lot of time and also to end hazards of millions of depositors of the country," Joshoda said.
Industry experts have demanded of the government to reduce duty structure on import of accessories to help accelerate the growth of an IT-driven banking transactions.
"A good number of foreign companies are ready to invest more in Bangladesh, but you have to attract them by slashing the huge duty-structure on import of accessories like security paper," Sandeep Sethi, marketing manager of NCR Global Holdings Ltd (middle east, Africa and APAC) told the FE Monday.
At present the import duty on security paper is 59 per cent.
"It is too high…the tax should not remain at such level on a core necessity as banking automation is no more a luxury item," Mr Sandeep added.
He said the tax rate is very high in Bangladesh in compare with other neighbouring countries as far as banking automation products is concerned making the companies' efforts tough with the cost of business going up.
He visited Bangladesh to see the progress of banking sector's automation jobs being done by NCR's local partner company, Technomedia Limited.
The rapid spread of ATMs in Dhaka and Chittagong is transforming the way the country's banking operations, with time consuming cash transactions no longer being conducted by human tellers.
In the past few years the number of ATMs (Automated Teller Machines) has jumped from a handful in the capital to around 1500 nationwide, the majority in Dhaka and Chittagong.
Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd (DBBL) tops the list in using the ATMs.
"Consumers now prefer to use ATMs for withdrawing cash and printing their recent banking transactions rather than deal with a human teller," said Joshoda Jibon Deb Nath, managing director of Technomedia Limited.
Commenting on the progress of Bangladesh's journey towards a digital era, the NCR executive said, apart from reducing duty structure on import of raw materials of the accessories, the country must improve the infrastructure and create strong awareness among the stakeholders on using IT devices.
Technomedia Ltd, a leading supplier and service provider in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the country is working hard under a Bangladesh Bank project to introduce MICR (magnetic ink character recognition) technology for bank cheques clearing and processing.
All scheduled banks will include MICR code in their cheques as per Bangladesh Automated Clearing House (BACH) compliance to end forgery in the paper-based payment transfer system.
MICR is the common machine language specification for the paper-based payment transfer system. It consists of magnetic ink printed characters of a special design which can be recognized by high speed magnetic recognition equipment.
Cheque standardisation, MICR encode and size & measurement are the basic components of BACH.
Donor-funded BACH will be established with a cost of $ 16 million.
Technomedia Ltd has been working since 2005 as NCR Bangladesh representative.
"The latest MICR technology, once implemented will help the central bank carry out clearing and processing activities very quickly to save lot of time and also to end hazards of millions of depositors of the country," Joshoda said.