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Arfan Ali, known as the pioneer of agent banking, has come back with digital booth after a few months when he quit his banking job in August last year.
Digital booth, a new concept, would be a rural financial services centre to facilitate all kinds of payment services in rural areas.
Arfan Ali had been serving as the managing director of Bank Asia since 2016. He was well known for his active involvement in agent banking since its inception.
Payment aggregator platform EkPay of Aspire to Innovate (a2i) and Zaytoon Business Solutions signed an agreement on Tuesday to install digital booths in rural areas.
Zaytoon Business Solutions Chairman Arfan Ali and a2i Project Director (joint secretary) Dewan Muhammad Humayun Kabir signed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides. After signing the agreement, Arfan Ali said that the Zaytoon Business Solutions will operate these village digital booths through local entrepreneurs.
It will facilitate all kinds of payment services, including financial services of the government and private institutions, government services bills, disbursement of allowances under social safety net programmes, educational institutions’ bill payment, telemedicine and e-ticketing etc.
Marginal people will also be able to get banking service through the platform. Banks and financial institutions can carry out the lending activities through these digital booths.
The organiser will first set up such digital booths in Munshiganj this month under a pilot project. They have plans to establish more booths in other areas of the country later.
The entrepreneurs, who have passed HSC exam, will be eligible to establish digital booths in his/her village area. Customers will have to pay charge against these services, but charges are yet to be finalised, said Arfan Ali.
Arfan Ali obtained an MBA degree from the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) of Dhaka University. He started his career as a probationary officer in Arab Bangladesh Bank in 1991.
