BB governor’s speech at inauguration of MasterCard Bangladesh

Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman was present at the inauguration of MasterCard Bangladesh on Wednesday night at The Westin Hotel, Dhaka.

“I feel very happy to be part of this inaugural ceremony as it will facilitate the presence of a globally renowned financial player like MasterCard in Bangladesh.”

MasterCard is the first Technology Company working in global payment industry is opening up a full-fledged office in Bangladesh. As you know MasterCard is a 47 years old technology company in the global payments industry that operates the world’s fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in over 210 countries & territories in the world with 1.9 billion payment cards globally.

By welcoming MasterCard in Bangladesh, I would like to share some developments of our innovative financial inclusion drive in Bangladesh which has received enormous global attention.

·        Total number of deposit accounts in banks (upto June 2013) stood at 61.2 million which is about 64 percent of the total population of age 15⁺ and 108 percent of the economically active population.

·        Financial inclusion due to opening of no-frill accounts (13.3 million) constitutes almost 27 percent of the total economically active population.

·        There are around 8.5 thousands bank branches along with about 20 thousands branches of NGO-MFIs, 1.2 thousands post offices and 183 thousands cooperative outlets totaling about 212.7 thousands branches/outlets for 56.6 million economically active population generating at least one financial service point per 266 people.

·        By now (October 2013), there are around 8.9 million mobile banking accounts which are growing at around 10 percent per month during the last few months.

·        Latest World Bank Global Financial Development Report also talks about significant positive development in the arena of financial inslusion in Bangladesh.

I am sure that opening of MasterCard’s full-fledged operation in Bangladesh will expedite our movement towards future ‘cash light’ economy by bringing the opportunities for local financial players like regulators, banks & merchant to work closely with them to bring more financial inclusion with Debit, Prepaid, Credit, mobile convergence products & Govt. identity/subsidy programs. It will definitely help us guide & implement the best practices of the world; educate partner banks, merchants & consumers with latest development of payment system and work closely with BFIU to implement best practices & international standards.

Let me conclude here by congratulating the sponsor of the MasterCard Bangladeshlimited.