Finding life partner with a click

A workaholic and shy person by nature, IT professional Rashedul Kabir wasn't in a hurry to find his life partner. When he hit his thirties, his family started looking for a good match for him but to no avail.

So, Rashed approached the expert in the matchmaking field, Kazi Ashraf Hossain, better known as Ghatak Pakhi Bhai. He opened a profile on Pakhi Bhai's website and after some formalities, he was ready to go.

Tahmina Ahmed, a banker looking for her potential partner on the same website, found her match with Rashed in two months.

Another successful project for Pakhi Bhai to mark his target of setting up 20,000 marriages.

Matchmaking in Bangladesh has been a manual task for ages, but professional matchmakers say the growing use of technology has made their job easier. From the experience of his 43 years, Pakhi Bhai told The Business Post that checking the background of potential brides and grooms were vital to being a reputed matchmaker in this field.

"In the pre-digitalisation era, I would need 10 to 12 days to verify information which now takes a moment. A prospective bride and a groom can now choose each other based on their criteria, and then we can fix meetings for them both online and offline," he added.

Matchmaking services require users to submit personal information like profession, age, gender, sexual orientation, preferences, location, and appearance.

Online profiles help people understand whether they want to move ahead or look for someone else. Some apps and websites even have artificial algorithms to help users find matches according to their priorities.

Around 1200 to 1500 marriges are conducted through these digital matchmaking firms a year, insiders have said.

Badhonmatrimony.com, SensibleMatch.com, Bangladeshimatrimony.com, Bibahabd.com, Marriagematchbd.com, Biyeta.com, Bibahobandhan.com, and Taslimamarriagemedia.com are some of the popular sites.

Several of them offer wedding planning and other management services. Some of these companies operate physically and online since many customers, especially the guardians, are not tech-savvy.

Bangladeshi Facebook users within the country and expatriate enthusiasts opened several matchmaking groups on the platform. Aspirants upload their information and preferences to meet their prospective life partners within their communities.

Where online companies charge a certain fee depending on the service packages, Taslima Akhter of Taslima Marriage Media told The Business Post that professionals like them charge a non-refundable registration fee of Tk 5,000 to Tk 10,000 in general.

"If a match is made, both the bride and the groom would have to pay between Tk 30,000 and Tk 2,00,000 depending on the effort and parties we deal with," she said.

Govt to launch marriage registration site

Last month, State Minister for Information and Communication Technology Division Zunaid Ahmed Palak said his division had already created a demo website – Bondhan.gov.bd – for online marriage and divorce registration.

He said that the website was at its final stage and would be open to the public soon.

Palak said there would be no online registration without verifiable documents, which would help prevent child marriage and fraud.