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| :: BB mulls automated payments for pension, grant, dole ~ |
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Pensioners, private school teachers and ultra poor of the country may get their allowances through automated payment system.
Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman disclosed the plan on Saturday in his keynote speech on financial inclusion and poverty alleviation at the 17th Joesph Mubiru Memorial Lecture in the Ugandan resort town of Munyonyo.
The Ugandan central bank has been organising the programme in honouring its first governor Joesph Mubiru since 1988.
Governor Mubiru laid strong foundations of the Ugandan central bank and was among the pioneers in establishing the African Development Bank in 1964.
On invitation of the central bank of Uganda, Dr Atiur delivered the speech in the programme, describing the present scenario in financial inclusion in Bangladesh and the future targets of Bangladesh Bank and the government.
"In day to day life, we need some basic transaction services from reliable service providers, like accepting our deposits, lending us money for current expense or investment to be repaid from future income flows, conducting money transfers and settlement of payments," said Dr Atiur and added that financial inclusion means access to such basic financial services.
He said some non-government organisations (NGOs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs) had been working in bringing the people under institutional financial services, but still the vast majority remained out of the basic financial services and its benefit. The governor said the central bank had taken initiatives to expand and ensure necessary banking services to the vast majority by introducing innovative programmes like soft loans to farmers, collateral-free credit to sharecroppers and cheaper to the small and medium enterprises.
He said smart card and mobile phone-based fund transfer, loan delivery and recovery would bring about the next new major breakthrough in financial inclusion.
Over the near term, Atiur said, BB's policies would focus on the potential synergies in creative, cost-saving partnerships between banks, MFIs, and telecom and mobile phone service providers in bridging the remaining gaps in financial inclusion; with due attention to the risk management, consumer protection and systemic stability issues that may arise in these new arrangements. "Similar cost-saving IT-based remote delivery arrangements are possible for numerous government payments in small amounts like social safety net allowances for the eligible poor, pension payments for retirees, salary subvention payments for teachers in privately-run schools and so forth," he said.
The governor observed that well-designed IT-based arrangements of this kind for these payments can prevent leakage or wrongful delivery of benefits, besides deepening financial inclusion. |
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