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Bangladesh Bank (BB) is actively considering introducing a platform for mobile interoperability within a short period of time to further facilitate automated transactions, Governor Dr Ahsan H Mansur said on Tuesday.
"We don't have mobile interoperability and it is something that we would be working on shortly," he told an event titled "Transforming the Payment Landscape: An Era of Evolution", speaking as the chief guest.
"Certainly, once we do that, we'll probably see a significant uplift in the transaction volume across different types of financial services providers."
The Payment Systems Department (PSD) of the central bank organised the programme at a city hotel, marking 12 years of its journey. Top executives of commercial banks and financial institutions as well as representatives from the development partners were present.
The governor observed that the country makes significant progress in the payment systems over the years through the digital infrastructure developed by the regulator and it has been largely benefiting bankers, businesses and general people across the country.
The economy's progress in financial inclusion has unquestionably made significant gains over the years but there is still a long way to go, he said, adding that the central bank is actively engaged with development partners who are assisting them to this effect. "We should be able to roll it out in the market soon."
Mobile interoperability is an ability to exchange payments among different mobile money platforms or networks. Mobile financial services (MFS) providers can integrate their operations with banks to enable bank-to-wallet and wallet-to-bank transfers.
MFS providers can also establish bilateral agreements to enable domestic money transfer interoperability.
Highlighting the importance of security protections in the rapidly changing technological world, Dr Mansur said the PSD should look into the potential risks of interoperability and make regulations in this regard, but not overriding and hurting the progress of the sector.
The BB launched RTGS (real time gross settlement) system on November 29, 2015 to facilitate safe, secured, efficient and instant settlement of interbank payment systems. It eliminated the problem of costs and time as well as the use of paper-based instruments for foreign currency transactions.
To facilitate the customer with the features of next-generation RTGS, the central bank has completed upgrading the system on November 24, 2024.
The new system enhanced the user interface, enabled operation of local and foreign currency individually, opened a special window for government transactions, offered the option to operate the system round the clock, and facilitated customer credit confirmation which ensures the finality of the transaction without knocking the receiver.
According to the BB data, some 68.72 per cent of the entire digital transactions in the banking sector are done through RTGS while annual MFS transactions reach Tk 17.0 trillion in 2024.
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