Bangladesh Bank plans 75% cashless transaction by 2027

Bangladesh Bank (BB) governor Abdur Rouf Talukder on Sunday said the central bank will take various measures to make 75% of the country's overall transaction cashless by 2027.

He termed cashless transactions a key advancement that would largely contribute to the growth of economic activities in the coming days in the era of highly digitilised world.

"We're taking steps to promote cashless transaction here. More efforts will be made in coming days because we want to reach the target of making 75% of the transactions cashless by 2027," the BB governor shared the plan while speaking at a Memorandum of Under-standing (MoU) signing ceremony with Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) at BB headquarters, BB sources said.

Alongside the Bangladesh Bank, BIDA signed the agreement with three conventional banks -- Agrani Bank Limited, Commercial Bank of Ceylon PLC and Mutual Trust Bank Limited -- during the signing ceremony. Under the deals, a total of 12 services will be added gradually to the BIDA-operated OSS (one stop service) portal.

The central bank governor said many services like fund disbursement of free finance and refinance of other banks with the Bangladesh Bank have been brought under Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS).

In addition, the central bank's core business services have been put online for a long time. "The services under the OSS will likely be provided within the next one month," he said urging the state-owned investment promoting agency, BIDA, to create an investment-friendly environment here.

The BB will provide eight services through the One Stop Service including the approval for term loans in foreign currencies from offshore banking units, allowing non-listed companies to make cross border transfers of their shares, profit and dividend repatriation-related facilities and remit various fees excluding franchise, royalty and technical assistance fees, abroad.

Non-listed companies with foreign owners can take money abroad after selling their shares to domestic companies. If the foreign institution is closed here, the remaining money will be allowed to be repatriated.

Besides, Agrani and Mutual Trust Bank customers can open bank accounts online through this service while the Commercial Bank of Ceylon can open temporary bank accounts and online bank accounts for foreign investors.

A total of 63 services of 23 institutions are available from the BIDA-operated OSS portal where over 150 services of 50plus institutions are planned to be made available.