With more than 7 crore customers and the winner of the Fintech Pioneer Award, Bkash is thriving in the MFS(Mobile Financial Services) sector in Bangladesh. Nowadays the word “Bkash koro” (send me money) has seen immense popularity among Bangladeshis. Bkash has successfully over the years made digital payments secure, faster, and better than ever.
How did Bkash reach success and become what it is now? To look for answers, we should get to know about its history, strategies, planning, and the trend of development through the years.
The inception
Since Bkash was launched in 2011, it has always strived to make banking services easier, affordable, and accessible to the rural people of Bangladesh. Mostly, in the rural areas, the banking services are not that prominent, and domestic remittance was difficult. They mostly had to send money to relatives. In addition, many procedures in Banks are time-consuming and hard to comprehend. That is why, only a low percentage of Bangladeshi had access to banking services. This is where Bkash made a breakthrough by setting up human agents and making services like money transfers and payments available to rural people.
Setting up human agents
During the 12 years of Bkash’s journey, it has successfully established a network of around 330,000 agents to make financial services accessible in every corner of Bangladesh. These human agents have built a reliable community and were also able to uplift their living standards. Furthermore, these MFS agents also trained others to expand the community, especially in the rural areas of Bangladesh. This made Bkash a trusted brand which further contributed to its success.
Introducing QR-based payments
Bkash not only served the poor, but it also helped the economy of Bangladesh to make a step towards cashless transactions by setting up QR codes in supermarkets to make payments more manageable. The customers also receive a copy of an electronic bill in their phone to record their purchase.
Cashless transactions are safe, secure, and environmentally friendly. It also reduces the need for people to carry hard cash with them, as there are risks of theft and robbery.
The launch of QR-based payments in 2021 by Bkash saw great success as the business soon noticed the benefits of incorporating Bkash as a means of payment which will help to increase their revenues.
Product Innovation: Bkash savings accounts
Bkash brought a great innovation in the Fintech sector, that is; the ability to create savings accounts just from the Bkash app. It operates in a similar way as several traditional banks’ savings accounts work. The users of Bkash can easily deposit money in their savings accounts with their smartphones. Industrial experts believe that this innovation has great potential to be something big in the future. As more savings will inject money into the banking ecosystem, this will result in a stronger foothold of the banking industry in Bangladesh.
Bkash has proved in all ways that it not only provides mobile financial services but has successfully built an ecosystem that promotes digital transactions, making banking services more accessible to rural areas and eminent product innovations. Inclusivity has helped Bkash reach great heights and it is also believed that the excellence of Bkash will help to bring more revolutionary change in the Fintech industry of Bangladesh.
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Writer,
Fatema Tuz Zohora
Intern, Content Writing Department
YSSE.