A consumers’ association has urged the authorities' concerned for strengthening service security of interoperability facilities among Mobile Financial Service (MFS) and demanded withdrawal of service charges.
The association titled 'Bangladesh Mobile Phone Consumer Association' came up with the demand on Wednesday in a media statement on the eve of launching of the new service.
President of the association Mohiuddin Ahmed said in the statement that MFS is the only medium of money transaction in Bangladesh that is very easy to use up to the marginal level.
"The country started mobile banking service in 2010 which is now second in the world and number one in Asia. At present the number of subscribers under this service is over 90 million. The number of agents has exceeded to one million," he said.
In August this year, Tk 410 billion was transacted through this service. Expatriate transactions through this service was Tk 1.04 billion, Tk 10.63 billion was paid as salaries and allowances, gas and electricity bills payment was Tk 9.08 billion, read the release.
The government gave efforts and has taken initiatives to remove all barriers of this service and introduce interconnection or inter-transaction with commercial banks with the service named interoperability facility, he added.
The service, however, could not be launched as scheduled due to technical difficulties of Bangladesh Bank (BB).
The facility has initially been set to be launched through bKash, Ucash, E-wallet and Pubali Bank while the rest banks are supposed to join the service by March 2021, it said.
"We welcome the service but we are concerned over the service charges that are fixed by BB," he added.
"Our point is that the service charge for MFS is already so high. If fresh service charges are added for new transactions, it will put unbearable financial pressure on consumers, and the service would be in vain."
And, the number of retailers in the country is around one million but all these retailers do not have adequate training and security measures. Thus, innumerable customers are constantly falling prey to hackers.
He urged the authorities to provide adequate training and cyber security, demanding the charges to be withdrawn as well as the security of the transaction be taken in utmost importance.
