Home ›› 14 Feb 2022 ›› Front
Credit card and e-commerce transactions rose to record level last year in line with the growing demand for and popularity of digital transactions amid the raging pandemic.
The Bangladesh Bank’s latest data showed that credit card transactions increased by around 50 per cent to Tk 21,336 crore and e-commerce transactions zoomed around 98 per cent to Tk 10,215 crore in 2021 over the previous year.
Both the transaction growth and amount were all time high.
Industry insiders said the pandemic obviated the need for digital transactions, and that’s why it’s also increasing in recent years. E-commerce is gaining popularity, especially for home services. That continued last year either.
On the other hand, as the Covid-19 transmission came slightly down last year, card transactions went up as the aviation and tourism sectors turned around.
The credit card transactions were all time high in December last year, which was Tk 2,229 crore, compared to that in the previous months.
The last year’s monthly average transaction was Tk 1,778 crore, which was Tk 1,187 crore in 2020.
Mastercard County Manager Syed Mohammad Kamal told The Business Post the credit card transactions rose behind the upward trends of e-commerce transactions which were up in June last year. Many customers use credit cards for e-com transactions.
He added that the uses of credit cards spiked since the economic rebounded last year after the pandemic ebbed away temporarily. Due to lack of sufficient cash money, many customers use their cards for purchase.
Again in some cases, sales of electronics products increased last year for which a large amount of money had been transacted by credit cards, according to Syed Mohammad Kamal.
The central Bank data shows that the number of credit cards issued increased by 11.78 per cent to 18,74,362 as of December 2021 which was 16,76,816 in December 2020.
E-com Transaction: Shopping at e-commerce has been growing rapidly for the last two years as part of maintaining social distancing during the pandemic. As a result, transactions were booming last year compared to that a year ago.
The Mastercard country manager said they saw in an analysis that digital transactions in e-commerce increased up to 37 per cent last year. It was possible because of changing customers’ behaviour during the pandemic.
“But the business has suffered a major setback in the previous year due to fraud by some e-commerce companies. It is reflected on the transaction data of e-com,” he observed.
In June last year, the transaction rose to more than a Tk 1000 crore, but later it started to decline.
E-com transactions reached Tk 1,277 crore in June last year which was an all-time high. In July, it dropped to Tk 741 crore and this trend continues. In December, the amount was Tk 825 crore.
In this context, Kamal said he is optimistic that overcoming the crisis, e-commerce business will turn around in the days to come.
