MFS transactions rebound in Oct
Transactions through mobile financial services (MFS) rebounded in October following a few months of decline thanks to a rise in government disbursements, cash-out and utility bill payments.
The volume of transactions increased by Tk 5,567 crore, or 6.35 per cent, to hit Tk 93,013 in October compared to Tk 87,635 crore a month earlier.
"The main reason of the growth in October is the increased amount of government disbursements through MFS," said Muhammad Zahidul Islam, head of communication at Nagad.
Nagad disbursed about Tk 1,000 core worth of government allocations in October.
MFS transactions had reached Tk 94,293 crore in June, when Eid-ul-Adha was celebrated, according to the latest data from Bangladesh Bank.
However, the all-time high was Tk 107,460 crore in April, which was bolstered by the country's top shopping season of Eid-ul-Fitr.
Industry people mainly attributed the decline in July and August to the usual drop in transactions during the months following a big festival.
On a year-on-year basis, the amount of MFS transactions increased by 21 per cent in October.
The transactions were made in the form of cash-in, cash-out, person-to-person transfers, merchant payments, government-to-person transfers, salary disbursements, talk-time purchases and utility bill payments.
In October, government-to-person transfers shot up 70-fold to Tk 1,418 crore compared to a month earlier.
The amount of cash-out, where customers withdraw money from their MFS account, increased by around 8 percent month-on-month to Tk 25,665 crore at the same time.
Meanwhile, merchant payments, where customers make purchases through their MFS account, increased by Tk 236 crore month-on-month to Tk 3,359 crore.
Salary disbursements decreased Tk 93 crore to Tk 2,659 crore month-on-month in October while utility bill payments increased by Tk 105 crore to Tk 2,283 crore.
About 18.75 crore users are registered with 13 MFS providers as of October, up by more than 23 lakh from September.
Gender-wise, 10.86 crore males use the service against 7.84 crore females, as per central bank data. There were 15.21 lakh MFS agents across the country as of October.
Although the number of accounts surpassed the 18-core mark in July, the number of active unique users is far fewer, less than half of the official figures, according to experts.
The MFS providers are Rocket, bKash, MYCash, Islami Bank mCash, Trust Axiata Pay, FSIBL FirstPay SureCash, Upay, OK Wallet, Rupali Bank SureCash, TeleCash, Islamic Wallet, Meghna Bank Tap n' Pay, and Nagad.
Comments