Bangladesh Development Bank Ltd (BDBL), a state-owned commercial bank, is set to introduce mobile banking this year, said a top official of the bank.

“We want to go mobile banking targeting to reach the disadvantaged group . We’ll send a proposal to Bangladesh Bank by the next 15 days to get its license,” Dr Md Zillur Rahman, Managing Director of the BDBL, told BSS.

In an exclusive interview, Dr Zillur said BiKash Ltd only transfers money but BDBL mobile financial service will have option of money transfer, withdrawal and deposit.

“We’ll introduce the mobile financial service by December,” he said adding that this service would reach all 64 districts by 2014.

The senior banker said the service will enable millions of banked and unbanked people to deposit, withdraw and transfer money through mobile phones.

Detailing the m-banking, the BDBL MD said any mobile user can register and open up a bank account and then do transactions through their mobile phones in easy and convenient manner.

None will have to come to the bank rather the bank will go to them once the mobile banking service is put in place, he said adding that it will be 24-hour banking.

He said the main objective of the e-banking is to make sure poor people’s easy access to banking services. “This green banking service will also create thousands of employments in rural areas as a good number of authorized agents would be appointed across the country.”

Thousands of crore of Taka kept in the name of rural associations but those money remained idle and does not come to main activities of the country’s economy.

“We want inject those idle money to banking channel through mobile banking,” said the senior banker.

Citing salient features of the banking service, he said free account opening, profit sharing among clients of the service are among those.

Eighty per cent of the deposited money of clients would be spent as loans, he said adding that it will in real sense give a big boost to the country’s poverty alleviation activities.

In the mobile banking service, he said, the BDBL plans to conduct all sorts of banking activities starting from opening of 10 in the mobile banking service Taka account and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

The BDBL has earned Taka 83.87 crore as net profit in 2012 while it disbursed Taka 448.93 crore as loans and realised Taka 276.56 crore during the same period.

The BDBL, having Taka 3,000 crore as asset while liability Taka 1500 crore, has now 26 branches across the country and of them three banks are in rural areas. —BSS