With the vision of Smart Bangladesh, the country is on the cusp of becoming a rapidly growing digital economy in the age of fourth industrial revolution. Its digital ecosystem is booming fast and a massive shift is taking place in people’s financial behaviour. With a plethora of digital services and solutions, the future is going to be an app-based cashless society.
Within the latest era of digital transformation, the mobile financial services (MFS) industry has created an inclusive platform of a wide range of transaction services accessible through both low-cost feature phones and smartphones from every corner of the country. bKash, being one of the pioneers of the financial inclusion journey, has been spearheading the MFS arena of Bangladesh for 12 years. bKash--member of every family, a synonym of “sending money”--has ushered in a huge transformation in the lives of millions through its robust and smooth app.
The magnum opus of bKash is its customer app available on both iOS and android operating systems. bKash app has accelerated financial inclusion and democratised the payment industry. The app was launched in April 2018. This app has quickly gained popularity among the customers for delivering convenient, secured, and regulated financial transactions.
Converging latest technology, deep customisation metrics and addition of customer-centric features, bKash revamped its customer app in September 2019 to ensure smoother user experience in their day-to-day financial transactions and offer more personalised, interactive and lifestyle-focused services. Since then, bKash app is ever-evolving with latest services and technology integration.
Robust services available in a few taps
From bKash app’s neatly designed home screen, customers can experience a wide range of services and features like Send Money, Mobile Recharge, Cash Out, Payment, Add Money (for bringing money from bank to bKash), Pay Bill, Purchasing Tickets, bKash to Bank (for transferring money from bKash to bank), remittance, payment option for insurance, microfinance and education fees and the option to make donation.
Recently, the opportunity to avail savings scheme and digital nano loan of banks and financial institutions has increased the app usage manifold. To date, around 1 million customers have availed savings scheme from bKash app with approximately 30 per cent being repeat customers and more than 100 thousand customers have availed nano loan. These services are only available through bKash app.
Not only checking limits, coupons and statements, customers can get updated information about their accounts as well as the nominees from the bKash menu. They can also utilise the bKash Map to find nearby merchants, agents, customer care points and ATMs from where they can cash out.
Security and vastness of services
Two-factor authentication has been added to ensure security for bKash app. By scanning QR code through bKash app has entirely revolutionised the payment method in the country. Currently, users can find 550,000 merchant points where they can scan and pay through bKash. Moreover, ‘My QR’ option has been added for every customer. A customer can receive money more easily by downloading and sharing his/her unique QR code.
From sending and receiving money to availing digital nano loan and savings to collecting and using reward points and everything in between–a user can find all the essential features conveniently located within the user interface (UI).
Salient features
bKash app has the most simplified self-registration experience where a new user can get on-boarded within a few minutes. The process is complemented with strong authentication and validation to ensure compliance and account security. Customers receive a personalised feel with tailored offers and themes when using popular services like “Mobile Recharge” and “Send Money”. They do not only get access to the majority of utility billers in the country through bKash app but also can enjoy the countrywide largest merchants and agent network to make payments and cash out easily through state-of-the-art QR ecosystem.
Since the inception of bKash app, the number of app users has increased to more than 30 million. Among them, a significant portion are actively transacting on a monthly basis. It has been observed that almost half of the users belong to the youth segment with the age bracket of 18-24.
Capacity to handle transactions of millions of customers
bKash app’s usage is growing every day. During peak usage hours, a high volume of traffic is handled through its distributed systems that balance the load to ensure a smooth user experience (UX). Especially during Eid festivals, bKash’s system seamlessly processes this traffic through a robust and scalable architecture which includes intelligent and adaptive load balancing, intuitive capacity planning, low latency network connectivity across multiple components and distributed database design for faster retrieval. The architecture also allows for an AI-based engine that delivers user-specific recommendations which is an extremely resource intensive process and the system handles that effortlessly. The system and its various granular components are monitored 24/7 for early detection and prevention of any possible issues using industry standard tools.
bKash is now one of the most used apps in the country. The ultimate objective is for the bKash app to be included in the lifestyle of every individual and in the process making lives more convenient. Currently, more than 50 per cent of bKash’s total transactions are done using bKash app. New services and features are constantly being added keeping customer convenience in focus.
One of the core principles of a technology-based company is being on top of current trends. bKash has partnered with world renowned companies to not only use their cutting-edge technology but also learn their way of work and their processes so that those can be implemented here at bKash.
