'upay' offers lowest cash out charge in mobile money transactions

FE Team | Published: April 21, 2021 23:31:07

Powered by state-of-the-art blockchain technology and a slew of security features such as device authentications, upay, the MFS subsidiary of the United Commercial Bank Limited, offers the lowest cash-out charge in the market for its customers conducting transactions via USSD, said a statement.
upay offers 1.4 per cent or Tk. 14 as fee for cashing out Tk. 1,000 from agent points. The charge is inclusive of VAT and taxes. The customers can cash out money from any upay agent points by dialing *268#, then selecting cash out option from the menu to complete the transactions.
In comparison, bKash and Rocket charge 1.85 per cent or Tk 18.5 for cashing out Tk. 1,000 while Nagad charges 1.49 or Tk.14.90 for the same.
USSD- unstructured supplementary service data is a communications technology to deliver mobile financial services to low-income customers who use very basic mobile phones.
The cash-out charge for withdrawal from UCB owned ATMs is also the lowest in the market which is 0.8 percent or Tk. 8 per Tk. 1,000 cash withdrawal. For app users, the withdrawal charge remains the same as USSD.
The upay app is available in the google play store for download.
Launched its operation on March 17, upay has also made person-to-person (p2p) transactions charge-free.
"According to our study, we found that around 70 per cent of mobile money transactions take place via USSD while the users are mostly poor and low-income people with limited access to smartphones and internet connections. So we have decided to empower our bottom of pyramid customers by offering the lowest cash-out charge in the market," said Sydul Haque Khandker, Managing Director of upay, adding that it will help to ease the burden on customers and boost financial inclusion.
With a nationwide presence of agent and merchant network, 'upay' products include mobile transaction, utility bill payment, merchant payment, inward remittance, airtime recharge, and disbursement of salary and various government social safety net allowances.
Besides, upay offers some unique services exclusively available for upay customers, including payment of traffic prosecution fines, Indian visa fee payment, and Titas gas (prepaid) bill payment. All types of bill payments are free of charge.
With the launch of the upay, UCB shelved its eight-year-old MFS brand 'Ucash' which was launched in 2013. The customers of Ucash have been migrated to the upay platform.
Besides, offering the lowest cash out charge, upay also built its platform powered by state-of-the-art blockchain technology, to ensures a greater sense of security and confidence to customers.
Sydul Khandker noted that security was a big concern for MFS customers, service providers, and regulators as well. Customers are often worried about the security of their money in the mobile accounts amid incidents of some fraudulent activities. upay platform addresses the issue and comes up with high-security features powered by blockchain technology and device authentications, ensuring the robustness of the system against any kind of manipulations of the system by unscrupulous persons.
The Bangladesh Bank allowed bank-led mobile financial service in 2011 to boost financial inclusion in the country through offering financial services via mobile phones for the poor and unbanked people. Around 15 banks are currently offering mobile financial services to more than 10 crore customers across the country. According to the latest central bank data, the number of mobile banking customers crossed 10.23 crore in February. The per-day average transaction was Tk. 1966 crore in n February which was around 6.5 percent more than January.
The Bangladesh Bank in December awarded an MFS license to UCB Fintech Company Limited to offer mobile financial services. UCB Fintech Limited launched the services in March under the brand name of upay.