upay, Grameenphone team up to simplify MFS account opening, recharging

Customers of the mobile phone operator will be able to open upay accounts by dialling the upay USSD code

Mobile financial service upay, in association with Grameenphone, has launched a registration system allowing customers of the mobile phone operator to open upay accounts by dialling the upay USSD code. 

Upay, MFS of United Commercial Bank Limited, has brought in mobile recharging services using Grameenphone’s USSD code *121# for the first time in the country, the companies said in a statement. 

The managing director and CEO of the bank, Arif Quadri, and Yasir Azman, CEO of Grameenphone, jointly inaugurated the services at an event held at Hotel Sheraton in Dhaka. 

Senior officials of UCB, upay and Grameenphone were present at the programme. 

Under this simplified customer registration process, Grameenphone customers will have to dial upay USSD code *268# and give consent to Grameenphone for sharing specific information such as NID number and date of birth with upay. 

After completing initial registration, customers can cash in and recharge up to Tk 500. To complete registration, a customer will need to capture their own photo either from the closest upay agent point or from their app. 

The companies said they developed the USSD-based registration system because a vast number of the population, mostly the marginal ones, are unable to open MFS accounts as they use basic phones and do not have access to the internet. 

“We hope the introduction of a USSD-based MFS account registration process will immensely benefit upay and the MFS industry as a whole for facilitating the people to open MFS accounts quickly but in a compliant manner to provide financial services,” said UCB MD and CEO Arif. 

Grameenphone CEO Yasir said: “The first-of-its-kind innovative solutions which enables feature phone users to open MFS accounts and recharge their phones is a revolutionary step in the industry.” 

upay and Grameenphone also launched a mobile recharge service under which upay customers can recharge their Grameenphone numbers by using Grameenphone’s USSD code *121#.  

Upon dialling *121#, a customer will get the ‘Recharge’ menu, and upay account holders can easily recharge any Grameenphone numbers just by entering their number and the recharge amount. Then users have to input the PIN number of the upay account.