The central bank of Bangladesh has won an international award for promoting financial inclusion, especially through mobile banking services.
Bangladesh Bank revealed this at a press conference at its headquarters in Dhaka yesterday.
The Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI), a forum of central banks and other financial regulators working for financial inclusion, selected BB for its first-ever award at the Global Policy Forum in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.
The AFI introduced the award this year to illustrate and promote successful financial inclusion polices within the AFI network.
“BB has received the award in recognition of innovative and impactful policies for mobile financial services,” Abul Quasem, deputy governor of BB, said at the press conference.
The central bank took initiatives in early 2010 to provide financial services to the unbanked population in rural, urban and remote areas. The BB also issued Guidelines on Mobile Financial Services for Banks in 2011.
The policy has created a conducive environment for mobile banking services to flourish. Mobile banking services are a bank-led model and BB is the regulatory authority. Banks appoint distributors and agents to run the operations.

The BB has so far allowed 28 banks to offer mobile banking services for which more than 17.6 million people have opened accounts.