Initiatives taken by the Bangladesh Bank to ensure financial inclusion deserve mention. In the financial sector, the concept of mobile banking is being applied impressively to bring a large number of people under the umbrella of banking and to let them enjoy the ease of modern technology. With the concept of financial inclusion gaining momentum in the early 2000s, the real progress was made by the central bank on March 31, 2011 when Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman inaugurated the test-run of a mobile banking project by a private bank on a small scale. For a country where only 13 per cent of the people have bank accounts, it has been an immensely pragmatic initiative to bring many people under basic financial services through use of their cell phones. The plan can be termed as very practical given the fact that around 45 per cent of the country's population now uses mobile phones.
The Bangladesh Bank has, so far, approved initiatives of 12 commercial banks to introduce self-managed mobile banking for their clients with different levels of services. For example, the Dhaka Bank and the Eastern Bank have got approval for remittance disbursement and letting their clients use m-wallet to deposit and withdraw money. The AB Bank, the Citi N.A., the Premier Bank, the Southeast Bank and the Bank Asia have been allowed only remittance disbursement while the Trust Bank and the Mercantile Bank can render all services except B2P payments. In addition, the Dutch Bangla Bank and the BRAC Bank have been allowed to provide a wide range of mobile banking services apart from P2P payment. As mobile banking is a bank-led model, the bank itself acts as the custodian of the money being transacted by the users of mobile banking.
The present state of the services offered through mobile banking by many banks has already been able to ease the life of a lot of people. Among the client strata, the student segment has been largely facilitated by these services. For example, for a student like this writer, who regularly sends money to his family back in Chittagong, it has brought an unimaginable level of ease and comfort along with cost efficiency. Previously, this scribe used to send money through courier service which consumed a lot of time being in the queue and not without the hassles of filling up a form and traffic jam on the roads. Many a time, it used to affect attendance in classes and tuition schedules and heaven and earth were often moved to match time. In addition, a big percentage of money had to be paid if the amount had to be received in Chittagong on an emergency basis.
Furthermore, using mobile banking account, one can also recharge his/her own phone and those of others when needed without resorting to the hassle of going to a recharge shop or scratching a card. More importantly, all these services are available for 24 hours in seven days of a week.
In spite of the myriad facilities offered by mobile banking, it has yet to be taken to every doorstep of the country. Banks should disseminate info on advantages of mobile banking with effective marketing and promotional initiatives and highlight the highly secured transparent and efficient services. Though the service charge is just 1.0 per cent, still many people cannot afford to go with that. So banks can work together to find a more innovative way to reduce their costs in order to offer the services at a lower charge. With all these efforts, more and more people can be brought under mobile banking and thus financial inclusion can be ensured in its truest sense.
