‘Govt aims to build cashless society within 3-4yr’

Prime Minister's ICT Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy has said the government aims to build cashless society within next three or four years as part of it's target to bring cent percent people under bank account service.

"Our next target is to build a cashless society," he told the launching ceremony of 'Binimoy', an interoperable digital transaction platform (IDTP), at a city hotel on Sunday.

Joy said currently around 50-60 MILLION village people don't have bank account. If Awami League is voted to power again in next elections, 100 per cent people of Bangladesh will have back accounts and they will lead cashless lives during "our government's next term", he added,

He said network systems were developed, government services were digitized, technology has advanced, large IT companies were built in Bangladesh, laptops, mobile phones and computer memory chips are being produced here and export of those is going to begin.

"Now our focus is to build a cashless society. We have already started working but it will take 3-4 years," he said.

State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak and ICT Division Senior Secretary NM Zeaul Alam addressed as the special guests at the inaugural function.

Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder chaired it while BB Director Mezbaul Haque gave a presentation explaining the features of the platform.

'Binimoy' is a breakthrough platform for establishing digital financial transactions, which is a timely initiative among the far-reaching steps taken by the government to build a digital Bangladesh initiative, reports BSS citing a press release.

In recent years, the government has taken steps to make all bank, MFS operator and PSP accounts interoperable. It will facilitate transactions between consumers, merchants, PSPs, e-wallets, banks, financial institutions, government agencies and private organizations.

Binimoy will make all forms of financial transactions cost-effective, simple and transparent, including the payment of employee wages, the sending of remittances, the payment of taxes/VAT, utility bills and e-commerce transactions.

Binimoy is a web-based platform that will be integrated as a service into the apps of banks, mobile financial services and payment system providers.

Velwire Limited, Microsoft Bangladesh, and Orion Informatics Limited collaborated on the development of the platform as part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Academy (IDEA) programme of the ICT Division and Bangladesh Bank.

Velwire Limited will uphold the responsibilities of Binimoy platform.

Bangladesh Bank in a notice last Thursday issued guidelines regarding the cost of Interoperable Digital Transaction Platform (IDTP).

As mentioned, sending money from bKash to Rocket will cost Tk 5.0 (per thousand). And sending money from MFS services (bKash, Rocket etc.) to the bank (per thousand) will cost Tk 10.

On the other hand, sending money from MFS to Payment Service Provider (PSP) account will cost Tk 5.0 per thousand.

It further informed that transactions on the platform will be available from tomorrow (Monday).