From now on, the consumers of Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (REB), popularly known as Palli Bidyut will be able to pay electricity bill through their bKash account.
bKash Limited, the largest mobile financial service provider in the country on Monday launched a bill payment service with technical assistance from Teletalk Bangladesh Limited, the state owned mobile phone operator, aiming to ensure fast, easy and reliable bill payment experiences for crores of Palli Bidyut customers across the country round the clock.
Apart from paying the bill, the customers can also check the bill amount from their bKash account.
Mustafa Jabbar, the Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology inaugurated the service at a ceremony held at the Sonargaon Pan Pacific Hotel in city.
The event was also attended by Md. Shahab Uddin, Managing Director of Teletalk, Mizanur Rashid, Chief Commercial Officer and Major General Sheikh Md Monirul Islam (retd), Chief External & Corporate Affairs Officer of bKash.
The REB is the largest power distribution company in the country by customers and majority of its customers live in villages and remote areas amid limited presence of bank branches and Palli Bidyut Samity office.
The REB has more than 20 million consumers till May 2018, according to its website.
Speaking on the occasion, Mustafa Jabbar said “The government has taken steps to accelerate digitisation process in every sphere towards the journey of building a cashless society. The introduction of bill pay service by bKash with the technical support from Teletalk would definitely add some values to the process”.
Md. ShahabUddin, Managing Director of Teletalk said, “We are happy to get bKash as our partner to provide bill payment service to our customers. This initiative is also aligned with our government vision of building a ‘Digital Bangladesh.’
The customers can make the bill payment by dialing *247# to access the bKash menu, then select ‘5’ for ‘pay bill’ service and follow some interactive steps to complete the transactions.
The service will be initially available through bKash USSD channel. Later, the service will also be available on bKash app.
Launched in 2011, bKash, a joint venture of BRAC Bank, US-based Money in Motion, World Bank’s private sector investment farm, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and China-based Ant Financial(Ali Pay) , an affiliate of Alibaba Group offers broad range of mobile financial services to the common people of Bangladesh.
-rmc//
