From top banker to promising entrepreneur for the people

Arfan Ali faced numerous challenges in his early life but his competitive attitude helped him climb the ladder to not just become a bank’s managing director, but also become a pioneer in financial inclusion.

It’s also the same mindset along with his desire to do something noteworthy for the marginalised people that helped him decide to quit his job and finally become an entrepreneur.

“I passed a very struggling period after my father’s death but hard work, perseverance and competitive attitude helped me move on and march ahead,” Arfan told The Business Post reflecting on his past.

Now known as the pioneer of agent banking which has become a popular form of banking operation in the country, Arfan wanted to be a BCS cadre in his early life.

But after getting his BCom degree from Dhaka College, he turned his focus to the financial sector instead of the BCS exam following his admission at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) of Dhaka University (DU).

He started his career in the financial sector by joining Arab Bangladesh (AB) Bank Ltd in May 1991 in the middle of his MBA studies at IBA. After one and a half decades, through an impressive career, he became the president and managing director of Bank Asia Ltd in 2016.

After much soul-searching, the experienced banker, who always wants to take easy banking services to marginal people, decided to quit his job in August last year.

Then he started a new business for financial inclusion and providing consultancy services to rural people.

At present, he is the chairman of Zaytoon Business Solutions which aims to bring technology-based financial services to the people in every village around the country.

Early life

Arfan’s father worked in the Bangladesh Railway. He was born on August 23 in 1967 at Shahjahanpur Railway Colony in Dhaka.

He completed his primary education at Motijheel Government Primary School. After his father retired from the railway in 1977, his family moved to their ancestral home in Munshiganj.

Arfan went to Bhairab, Kishoreganj to live with his sister after the death of their father. There, he was admitted to Bhairab KB High School. After passing the SSC exams, he went back to Dhaka to live with his older brother and was admitted to Notre Dame College in 1984.

“Those days were very difficult for me but Notre Dame College changed the course of my life. The college was very strict about discipline and study, which shaped my future,” he said reminiscing about his early life.

He was awarded the best student prize (commerce group) from the college and secured first division in the HSC exams.

While most of the Notre Dame students aimed to get admitted to DU after HSC, young Arfan got himself admitted to Dhaka College to get the Bachelor of Commerce degree as soon as possible because he wanted to sit for the BCS exam and pursue a great career in a government job.

Focus shifts from BCS

Arfan, the best student of Notre Dame College of his time, obtained his BCom degree from Dhaka College with a second division in 1988.

“Afterwards, I was passing a leisure period. But soon, I found out that some of my friends were preparing themselves for the admission exam of DU’s IBA. It made me think again about my future.

“After some introspection, I decided to change my plan to sit for the BCS exam, and started preparing for the IBA admission test,” he said.

Soon enough, he got admitted to the IBA and obtained his MBA degree with a major in finance from the prestigious institute in 1993.

“But before completing my MBA degree, I joined AB Bank on May 2 in 1991 as a probationary officer and it was the biggest learning opportunity for me to become a banker.

“This was my first job as a banker and this time was very critical for me. After completing my daylong duty at AB Bank, I used to go to my MBA classes in the evening. It was not easy. But I ploughed through with my sheer determination to be the best at my job,” Arfan remembered.

After a while, the bank promoted him from probationary officer to in charge of the Foreign Exchange Department because of his exemplary passion and hard work. He worked for the bank till 1996.

“AB Bank had shaped my banking career just like Notre Dame College changed the arc of my life through my student years,” he stressed.

Career as a banker

Looking back, Arfan told The Business Post, “I used to prioritise competition and there was a big learning opportunity for me at the AB Bank branch where I worked. I had no time to relax at that stage.”

“The then branch manager Zahid Hossain Chowdhury was my supervisor and I learned about banking first-hand from him,” he said, adding that Zahid later became the managing director of Trust Bank Ltd.

Mainul Rashid was another mentor at AB Bank but he later moved to Canada, he said. “The two people directly influenced me and that helped me build my career.”

Arfan joined Hanil Bank (then the second largest commercial bank in South Korea) on August 8, 1996, as a senior officer and served as a team member of the preparatory office for setting up the Dhaka Branch.

The foreign bank significantly enhanced his career because it helped him build relationships with Bangladesh Bank and other related organisations. He worked for the South Korean bank until September 1999.

Then, he joined Bank Asia in 1999 when it was launched. He was a member of the team that handled the due diligence of local operations of Bank of Nova Scotia and Muslim Commercial Bank Ltd of Pakistan before Bank Asia acquired their business operations during 2001-02.

Since then, Arfan worked at Bank Asia for a long time. He was promoted to senior executive vice president in 2011. In 2013, he was promoted to deputy managing director and additional managing director in 2016.

The experienced banker climbed to the top when was promoted to president and managing director of the bank on August 7, 2016, in recognition of his contribution to the company’s business.

He retired voluntarily from Bank Asia in August 2022 as he wanted to pursue his dreams of doing something ground-breaking for the country’s marginalised people.

Accomplishments

In 2012, Arfan Ali provided banking solutions and technical assistance in digitalising the government’s Ektee Bari Ektee Khamar (EBEK) project, which serves 4.5 million beneficiaries.

“This was another game changer in my career. We got the chance to learn extensively about the rural economy by working on this project,” he said.

Later, Arfan also played a vital role in the initial stage to make the agent banking platform successful through Bank Asia, mainly due to his innovative mind and tremendous effort.

This innovative platform has provided banking and financial services and brought in huge unbanked and underserved people all over the country to the banking sector.

At present, 30 local banks are following the business model of Agent Banking and serving 18 million customers around the nation.

“The central bank had offered us a pilot project after knowing our involvement with the EBEK project and we launched agent banking activities on January 17, 2014,” he said.

Bank Asia played a vital role to popularise agent banking when there was a need to bring the unbanked people into the banking sector, he added.

Now people are saving more in rural areas because of the growing trend of agent banking, he said.

Becoming an entrepreneur

Talking to The Business Post, Arfan said that he always wanted to get himself involved in the financial inclusion agenda. It motivated him to do something good and sustainable for the people living in villages around the country.

With that goal in mind, after quitting his job last year, the agent banking pioneer became an entrepreneur and launched a tech-based entity, named Zaytoon Business Solutions.

He plans to bring all rural unreached people under technology-based financial services by establishing Village Digital Booths in every village through the company.

“I quit my banking job finally after I started feeling discomfort. I wanted to create something new,” he said. “I want to make my new agenda successful and go to the rural people using my previous experience in agent banking.”

Zaytoon aims to develop itself as a payment aggregator and ensure financial inclusion by making all financial services easily accessible to the unreached people in the country’s rural areas to achieve the SDGs.

The company’s current services include payment aggregation, agent banking, foreign remittance transfer, and loan products for cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises.

Arfan’s Zaytoon recently signed an agreement with payment aggregator platform EkPay of a2i to install Village Digital Booths in rural areas to advance the financial inclusion of marginalised communities quickly and institutionally. EkPay will provide technical and overall support.

The booths will facilitate all types of payment services, including financial services of the government and private institutions, collection of government fees and taxes, disbursement of allowances under the social safety net programmes, educational institutions’ fee payments, telemedicine, e-commerce, etc.

Marginal people will also be able to get banking services through the platform. Banks and financial institutions will be able to carry out lending activities through these booths in near future.

A man of financial inclusion

Arfan said, “Most of the bankers do not want to go to the rural areas but I am always trying to go to the villages with banking services.”

“Now bankers are following me when it comes to financial inclusion. After Bank Asia’s success in agent banking, a growing number of banks have introduced the innovative platform and saw success,” he said.

Now, at least 31 banks have licences for agent banking operations, while the number of agents stood at 14,299 at the end of September last year.

The total number of accounts opened through agent banking stands at 16,780,576. The accounts opened by women constitute 48.84 per cent of the total and 86.24 per cent of total accounts have been opened in rural areas.

However, most of the banks are focusing only on mobilising deposits instead of lending.

Until September 2022, lending through agent banking rose to around Tk 8,880.9 crore. The volume of total loans has increased by 16.16 per cent over the previous quarter, indicating the medium’s rising popularity among people.

Arfan said that everything in his career revolved around marginalised people and he has always tried to work on their financial inclusion.

Now, it’s his dream to work on their financial inclusion on a larger scale and be successful in making it easier for marginalised communities to enjoy proper financial services, he said expressing his hope.