intro notes

Bangladesh has a nascent financial market. To achieve goals of Digital Bangladesh objectives, we must turn into a thriving financial market with real-time transactions, secure and trusted payment systems. Existing infrastructure and consumer-base: the vast mobile communication network of 45 million mobile users of 30% growth each year (est. 2008)- are indeed innovative catalyst for a mobile based financial market development. And its right time now.

Newspapers are full of stories of customers walking out of banks and getting robbed. Wouldn't it be wonderful to not have to carry a lot of money, instead just carry a means to be able to give the money to others? Rest of the world does this with cheques, electronic funds transfers (EFT) and credit/debit cards. But in Bangladesh, we are still a cash-based society. The Governor of Bangladesh Bank recently stated that only 13 percent of the country (19 million accounts) utilizes banking services. Cheques are not trusted, EFTs require too much time, and the infrastructure for wide acceptance credit cards do not exist.

We used to wait for hours to pay an electricity, telephone or gas bill. What if those bills could be paid from the comfort of our home?

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