Bangladesh Bank denies ride-sharing app Pathao permission to add wallet service

Bangladesh Bank has denied motorcycle ride-sharing app Pathao the permission to add payment service ‘Pathao Pay’.

This means the users of the service will no more be allowed to recharge their virtual wallet.

Those already having money in the wallet will get the services announced by Pathao earlier, according to its CEO and cofounder Hussain Elius.

Bangladesh Bank spokesman Serajul Islam told bdnews24.com on Thursday they did not clear Pathao to operate the wallet service due to ‘ethical reasons’.

Pathao’s payment service was a ‘closed wallet’, for which Bangladesh has no specific guideline, its CEO Elius told bdnews24.com. “But there are detailed guidelines for open wallet,” he said.

“We had faced problem as we started the service as closed wallet. We will turn the service into open wallet in the future by fulfilling all the conditions so that no guideline is violated,” he added.

The payment service was activated six weeks ago, according to Elius.

Serajul said, “Bangladesh Bank did not give Pathao the permission to launch operations. If they continue the operations, the law-enforcing agencies and the BSIU (Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit) will take action.” 

The Pathao Pay service became popular among the subscribers within a few days after the launch as they were able to pay for rides through their virtual wallet by recharging it from credit card, bank account and other financial services.