Major nationwide EMTS expansion underway

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Talha Bin Habib | Published: March 03, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

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The government will expand electronic money transfer services to the union level by May, considering the growing demand, a top postal official said.
The official said the Directorate of Bangladesh Post Office (BPO) will appoint thousands of agents for implementing the services, known as EMTS, in every union of the country.     
All the retailers of Banglalink along with post-e centres and post offices will also provide the EMTS.  
"We hope to expand this service (EMTS) every nook and corner of the country. This may take three months," Deputy Postmaster General of BPO Md Zakir Hasan Nur told the FE.
The EMTS now covers districts, upazila and some busy post offices in rural locations.
Initially, the BPO will appoint 5,000 to 10,000 agents, mostly unemployed youths, for running the EMTS, he added.
In response to the growing popularity of the electronic money transfer services (EMTS), the BPO slashed the service charge to Tk 15 from Tk 27 for sending Tk 1,000 from January 3, 2016.
The online-money transfer market is flourishing in the country, which has inspired the postal authorities to appoint agents for expanding the EMTS services.
The EMTS was commercially launched in 104 post offices on an experimental basis in May, 2010 after prime minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated it in March, 2010.
In response to the overwhelming demand, this service has now been expanded to 1,150 post offices throughout the country, including in all district and upazila post offices, according to the BPO.  
The number of post offices in the country is 8,500.
Officials said this service has got wide acceptability and popularity within a short span of time.
A BPO official said they received nearly 50,000 applications from the potential EMTS agents.
"It will significantly help increase revenue earnings of the BPO through countrywide expansion of EMTS," he said.
He said that the BPO will provide all the logistics support to the agents. The agents will get Tk 14 out of Tk 18.50 as service charge.
The rest of the money of the service charge for sending Tk 1,000 by the client will go to the government.  
So far, the BPO has made a net profit of Tk 841 million from EMTS through its post offices. The EMTS will be available at all the post offices in phases.
 The EMTS is a web and mobile-based application through which money can be sent instantly aided by a cellphone or personal computer.
This facility allows a sender to send the money within a minute and the intended recipient or beneficiary can collect it instantly.
The minimum charge for sending Tk 800 or below under EMTS is fixed at Tk 15, while Tk 18.50 for Tk 1,000.
For corporate clients (government offices, banks and others for paying salary), the minimum charge will be Tk 15.
If a sender sends Tk 2,000 or above then he/ she has to pay a charge of Tk 37 (Tk 18.50 for Tk per thousand).     
For EMTS, a sender goes to the post office and fills out an issue form (EMO-1) giving the required information like sender name, address, mobile phone number, recipient's name, address, mobile phone number and the amount of money to be sent etc.
The post office staff/ agents/ e-post centre sends the information to the central server through the computer of official EMTS mobile phone.
When the request is accepted and confirmed by the server through issuing short message service (SMS) generating a 16 digit unique PIN to senders' mobile phone and a separate confirmation message is sent to the issuing post office.
The sender shall inform the recipient to collect the money from his/ her post office/ agents/ e-post centre.
talhabinhabib@yahoo.conm