UCB plans to launch new MFS co by Dec

'It'll be first MFS to use block-chain technology'

FHM HUMAYAN KABIR | Published: August 29, 2020 20:26:39

Bangladesh's mobile financial service (MFS) sector is likely to get a big boost with the new foothold of an old market player to serve potential customers independently in paperless banking, company sources said.
The United Commercial Bank Limited's (UCB) MFS wallets - U-Cash and U-pay - are going to be replaced with a new brand under an independent company by this year-end, its project head told the FE.
The proposed fintech-based MFS service has a target to provide banking services on mobile phone for the customers, he added.
Programme Director of the UCB's MFS project Sydul H Khandaker said they already applied to the central bank for operating pendent MFS company, instead of operating as a wing of the UCB, by launching new services and products.
Bangladesh is one of the growing and potential tech-based financial service markets, as most of its banking and financial transactions are still being done manually.
The country's nearly 50 per cent population are still unbanked, who are the potential customers of the digital financial services.
The fintech-based money handling, especially the MFS, is annually posting growth at a rate of 20 per cent over the last few years.
After launch of the first MFS company in 2011, Bangladesh's digital platforms for money transaction and payments are growing at high rates, the market insiders said.
There are three independent MFS companies in the country - bKash, Nagad and SureCash.
The UCB's current MFSs - U-cash and U-pay - were launched in 2013 and 2017 respectively.
Mr Khandaker said: "As per our plan, we will introduce block-chain technology for our planed MFS company. It will ensure security of the customers' data. It will be the first MFS, introducing the block-chain technology for our independent company."
Mr Kahndaker said they would enter the market by this December as a fully independent company, where the customers will get some innovative new products along with the traditional ones.
He also said the new brand of their mobile banking wallet would be named soon, and then U-cash and U-pay would be shut.
Their technical, marketing and business teams have been working hard over the last few months to lay a new foothold in Bangladesh's growing MFS market, targeting to bring more customers into the digital payment network.
It would not be easy to enter the market with products only, he noted.
"It will also need changing the behaviour of people for tapping the potential customers. We will try to train people for exercising the fintech-friendly behaviour. It will help ensure the paperless banking in future."
"The government's mission to establish a Digital Bangladesh will get a big boost, if we can change the behaviour of people to avail the fintech-based services instead of the typical banking system," he added.
Currently, Bangladesh has some 15 MFS service providers of commercial banks, which handle nearly some 88.8 million customers, the Bangladesh Bank (BB) data showed.
According to the BB, the daily transactions through MFSs in this June were worth Tk 44.831 billion.
The growing number of mobile subscribers and internet users has become one of the major drivers of a Digital Bangladesh.
The Statista's report predicted that global mobile payments would cross the US$1.0 trillion mark in 2020.
Right now, three out of every four people, worldwide, use a fintech service, according to a Finances Online report.
Tech giants, like - Google, Apple, Tencent, and Alibaba, have already created their digital payment platforms, rich with features like biometric access control, fingerprint recognition, and face detection.
Alibaba's Alipay is now the world's largest mobile payment platform with an estimated worth of $75 billion, according to Investopedia.
According to Internet World Stats, Bangladesh has the second-highest internet penetration rate in South Asia with 57.2 per cent of the total population covered.
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