Speakers at a discussion on Saturday urged the banking regulator to declare significant market power (SMP) policy in the mobile financial service industry to break the monopoly of this latest payment system to enhance competition in the market, reports BSS.
They also called for a cut in the cash-out charge, fix vat at 5 per cent which is now 15 per cent, ensure cost-free interoperability facility and enhance security for all kinds of transactions.
They made the call at the discussion on 'fixing logical charge on mobile banking, charge-free interoperability and users’ security' at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) in the city, said a press release.
Bangladesh Mobile Phone Consumers Association (BMPCA) organised the discussion.
Vice Chairman of Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission Subrata Roy Maitra, BMPCA President Mohiuddin Ahmed and BTRC Director Mohammad Azizur Rahman Siddiqui, among others, were present on the occasion.
Subrata Roy Maitra said Nagad opened everyone's eyes to cash-out charges.
"We even cannot understand that the charge can be reduced to this level. And as the government owned entity made it half that means everyone can do the same thing," said Maitra.
For fixing any charge Maitra recommended that the central bank go for cost modelling.
Mohammad Azizur Rahman Siddiqui said with the higher charges some of the MFS carriers are earning hundreds of crore taka every year.
Mohiuddin Ahmed said MFS has introduced in the country one decade ago and transaction number has increased thousand fold but the charge remains the same at Taka 18.50 for Taka 1,000 cash-out. And agents' charges the customers at Taka 20 for every one thousand, he added.
However, he said, for the first time Nagad, a financial arm of Bangladesh Post Office has reduced the charge to Taka 9.99 to cash-out Taka 1,000 while using mobile application.
He said if the state-owned venture can reduce the cash-out charge drastically then why not the banking regulator take initiative to reduce the cost of this segment.
He said the telecom regulator already has introduced SMP policy to control the market dominating mobile phone carrier that has about 50 percent revenue share.
"We think that with that decision competition in the telecom market has enhanced and a balance has created. But in the MFS segment a single operator is controlling about 70 percent share in terms of customers and about 85 percent market controlling in terms of revenue. Then why doesn't Bangladesh Bank move on imposing SMP regulation?" he questioned.
