Home ›› 09 Dec 2021 ›› Front
The Bangladesh Bank (BB) has halted the activities of three illegitimate online payment gateways as they were operating their business without the central bank approval.
The three are Foster Corporation Ltd, Paysenz Limited and The Codero Limited.
The central bank on December 5 sent three separate letters to the managing director and CEO of all the scheduled banks, the mobile financial service providers and payment service providers (PSP) in this regard.
The BB also asked banks not to provide any services related to trust-cum settlement accounts and payment system operations to those three online payment gateways as their applications for licence have been turned down.
The trust-cum-settlement account refers to a custody account where the legal tender shall be stored against the issuance of e-money by a payment service provider or payment system operator.
NRB Bank Managing Director and CEO Mamoon Mahmood Shah told The Business Post that his bank received the central bank letter and is going to apply its directive.
Modhumoti Bank Managing Director Md Shafiul Azam echoed the same as Mamoon. Before the move, the BB asked the rogue online payment gateways to close down operation.
A high official of the central bank said, “We have refused their applications for licence since their activities are not satisfactory.”
“We will phase out all illegitimate e-payment gateways in the market but those that would be able to fulfill the central bank requirements will get licence,” the BB official said, seeking anonymity.
Sources said half a dozen such payment services are operating their business without the approval of the banking regulator.
According to the industry insiders, a number of online payment systems are doing business without the licence which sparked criticism while a dozen of controversial e-commerce platforms came under the government scanner.
They said the central bank found some rogue online payment service providers involved in fraudulent activities, which prompted the BB to go for such initiative.
Recently, the Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit directed all scheduled banks to freeze bank accounts of the illegal payment gateway namely Foster.
Foster is the payment gateway of controversial e-commerce platform Qcoom.
