Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman and Deputy Governor SK Sur Chowdhury, are seen at a function on digitisation of the central bank in Dhaka Saturday.

In line with the government’s target for digitising Bangladesh towards poverty alleviation, Bangladesh Bank (BB) is implementing many innovative initiatives to build a countrywide modern technology-based, efficient and more secure banking system.

The initiatives of the central bank already brought various banking services in 19 major areas under automation. These include introduction of Bangladesh Automated Clearing House (BACH), Bangladesh Electronic Fund Transfer Network (BEFTN), online CIB service, banking application, enterprise resource planning (ERP), e-tendering, e-recruiting, e-commerce, online dashboard reporting system, national payment system, large loan monitoring software, import export and remittance monitoring system, open data initiative, online transactions of prize bond and savings certificate, online bond market, mobile banking, internet and online banking and PayPal for remitting income from outsourcing.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina formally inaugurated the digitization initiatives at a programme in the city Saturday.

BB on October 10, 2010 launched the automated clearing and settlement of interbank cheques and electronic transactions to address the growing demand for a fast, secure and state-of-the art payment system in the country’s banking sector. The automated clearing system helps individuals and businesses to settle their transactions faster, which eventually quicken the financial activities and thus business and return as well.

Introduced on February 28, 2011, BEFTN is also a critical component in the development of a modern payment system infrastructure, which facilitates a wide variety of credit transfer applications such as payroll, foreign and domestic remittance, company dividends, bill payments, corporate salary payments, tax payments and payments for many government fees and allowances and person to person debit transfer.

Currently, 37 out of total 47 banks are offering online and internet banking services to their customers.

Introduction of online CIB (credit information bureau) report on July 19, 2011 offers banks, financial institutions and entrepreneurs furnish necessary credit information at anytime around the year.

Mobile banking takes to the banking services to grassroots level where many people had long been deprived of the institutional financial services. Following the issuance of the guideline for mobile financial services by BB on September 22, 2012, many banks started providing this service 24 hours a day and seven days a week with partnership of mobile phone operators.

Many firms have started selling various products and services online after the central bank introduced e-commerce.

Introduction of e-tendering and e-recruiting has made more transparent of the tendering and recruiting process of the central bank.