State-owned banks for truly digitised banking procedure

State-owned banks are planning to introduce a truly digitised banking procedure, especially at this time of Covid-19 pandemic when contactless banking is the demand of the time. 

The banks’ chief executive officers (CEOs) in a recent meeting with Financial Institutions Division Senior Secretary Md Ashadul Islam expressed their move to turn traditional counter based banking services into IT based banking procedure.

The secretary gave them a green signal asking the CEOs to prepare a detailed roadmap each.

“Characteristics of banking service will have to be changed; the idea of 10:00am-6:00pm banking time has to be shifted to 24/7 banking,” Mohammad Shams-Ul Islam, managing director and CEO of Agrani Bank Ltd, told the meeting.

Janata Bank CEO and Managing Director Abdus Salam said if the government banks cannot introduce IT enabled internet and mobile banking, those will not able to survive in this reality.

In future, there will have no ATM card system for which the Bangladesh Development Bank Limited (BDBL) is going to introduce a complete digitised banking system, said Kazi Alamgir, MD and CEO of BDBL.

Mamun Rashid, Managing Partner of PwC Bangladesh, said, “A truly digitised financial system requires a secured, contactless, and converged financial platform. And this platform should be flexible enough to include new technologies like blockchain and artificial intelligence-based customer intelligence.”

For the users, it means ease of usage, fluid transfer of funds, and greater flexibility in payment methods, he said.

On the other hand, for the service providers and merchants, he said, it means less redundancy, greater security, and harnessing strategic partnerships for better customer services.

According to Bangladesh Bank data, 87% of bank branches in Bangladesh are online and 8% are partially online, meaning 95% of bank branches in Bangladesh can do online banking.