Digital payment can be used for CMSME loans: Experts

Accepting of digital payment through the personal retail account could pave the way for the country's cottage, micro, small and medium enterprises (CMSMEs) to avail loans from banking channels, experts said today.

Bangladesh Bank in November 2020 issued a circular enabling the micro and underprivileged businesses—those who have accounts with banks, mobile financial service and payment service providers—to open personal retail accounts without a trade licence.

"CMSME covers 90 per cent of the country's economic activities employing over 1.4 crore people. But about 60 per cent of the CMSME have no access to finance from banks and financial institutions," Shah Zia-Ul Haque, an additional director of Bangladesh Bank.

A record or footprint will be created when the CMSMEs would use digital platforms for transactions, he said.

And the CMSMEs can use these footprints to get bank loans, he said.

He was speaking at a workshop on personal retail account organised by the Bangladesh Bank at The Westin Dhaka today.

Muhommad Badiuzzaman Dider, a director at the central bank; M Rashed Al Hasan, senior project officer for financial sector at the Asian Development Bank; Md Khurshid Alam, an executive director at the BB, and Rafeza Akhter Kanta, additional director, also spoke.