Mobile Banking in Bangladesh

 

Mobile banking is one of the latest tools for easy and convenient banking in the current world. Day by day mobile banking is becoming popular in Bangladesh. With proper guidelines mobile banking can take Bangladesh to a different level of prosperity. Mobile banking has created new dimension in our economy. Some banks and government owned department as like Bangladesh Post Office (Nagad) are now offering this service. It is cheap both for the banks and the customers. The bank will be able to lower down the overhead cost and make more profit out of it. The customers will be able to save time as well as money for their transaction needs.

Mobile Banking

Mobile banking is a digital financial service in banking sector that facilitates banking via mobile devices. With the tremendous growth in mobile phone usage, banks in developed world have moved to utilize mobile banking, which makes banking easier, faster and very cost effective. Researchers believe that growth of mobile banking in Bangladesh is inevitable, especially when banks do not have sufficient numbers of branches in rural areas of Bangladesh.

History of Mobile Banking

The earliest mobile banking services used SMS, a service known as SMS banking. With the introduction of smartphone with WAP support enabling use of mobile web in 1999 which was the first European banks started to offer mobile banking on this platform to their customers. Mobile banking idea at first came to Bangladesh in October 2009. City Bank Limited is the first bank that give idea by their mobile banking software name as CITY WALLET. Dutch Bangla Bank Limited started mobile banking in full widely and swing in Bangladesh on 31/03/2011. bKash was launched in July 2011 in our country which is now the largest provider of mobile financial services in Bangladesh. 

Objectives of Mobile Banking

Around 87% of total population of Bangladesh is out of banking service. To bring such a huge population into banking channel, mobile banking enables any person having a mobile number to use his/ her number as bank account. Mobile account will be able to do: 1) Cash withdrawal from any agent of mobile banking or ATMs. 2) Cash deposit to any agent of mobile banking. 3) Utility bill payment, tuition fee payment etc. 4) Fund transfer to another mobile account. 5) Receive remittance from home and abroad. 6) Balance inquiry. 7) Salary disbursement.

Differences between Mobile Banking & Internet Banking

The differences between mobile banking and internet banking are: Internet banking is nothing but a banking transaction, carried out over internet, via respective bank/ financial institutions websites, with a personal computer, under a personal profile. Conversely, mobile banking is a service that enables the customers to perform banking transactions using a cellular device. On the other hands, Mobile banking uses short message services, mobile applications / webs. In contrast, internet banking uses bank's website.