Prime Minister’s ICT Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy formally inaugurated ‘Binimoy’, an interoperable digital transaction platform (IDTP), at a city hotel. State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak and ICT Division Senior Secretary NM Zeaul Alam addressed as the special guests at the inaugural function on Sunday. Bangladesh Bank (BB) Governor Abdur Rouf Talukder presided over the session. BB Director Mezbaul Haque gave a presentation explaining the features of the platform.
‘Binimoy’ is a breakthrough platform for establishing digital financial transactions, which is a timely initiative among the far-reaching steps taken by the government to build a digital Bangladesh initiative, said a press release today.
In recent years, the government has taken steps to make all bank, MFS operator and PSP accounts interoperable. It will facilitate transactions between consumers, merchants, PSPs, e-wallets, banks, financial institutions, government agencies and private organizations. Binimoy will make all forms of financial transactions cost-effective, simple and transparent, including the payment of employee wages, the sending of remittances, the payment of taxes/VAT, the payment of utility bills and e-commerce transactions.
Binimoy is a web-based platform that will be integrated as a service into the apps of banks, mobile financial services and payment system providers. Velwire Limited, Microsoft Bangladesh, and Orion Informatics Limited collaborated on the development of the platform as part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Academy (IDEA) programme of the ICT Division and Bangladesh Bank. Velwire Limited will uphold the responsibilities of Binimoy platform.
Bangladesh Bank in a notice last Thursday issued guidelines regarding the cost of Interoperable Digital Transaction Platform (IDTP). As mentioned, sending money from bKash to Rocket will cost Taka 5 (per thousand). And sending money from MFS services (bKash, Rocket etc.) to the bank (per thousand) will cost Taka 10. On the other hand, sending money from MFS to Payment Service Provider (PSP) account will cost Taka 5 per thousand.
BSS adds: Sajeeb Wazed Joy said the government aims to build a cashless society within the next three or four years as part of it’s target to bring cent percent people under bank account service. “Our next target is to build a cashless society,” he said.
Joy said currently around 5 to 6 crore village people don’t have bank accounts. If Awami League is voted to power again in next elections, 100 percent people of Bangladesh will have bank accounts and they will lead cashless lives during “our government’s next term”, he added.
He said network infrastructures has been developed, government services has been digitized, technology has advanced, large IT companies has been built in Bangladesh, laptops, mobile phones and computer memory chips are being produced here and export of those is going to begin. “Now our focus is to build a cashless society. We have already started working but it will take 3 to 4 years,” he adding “the entire future world will be cashless as everyone has smart phone or mobile phone in his or her hands.”