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Published : 24 Nov 2025, 05:40 PM
Bangladesh Bank Governor Ahsan H Mansur has said all public and private institutions could be brought under a fully interoperable digital transaction system by July 2027.
It will open the door to seamless transfers across banks, mobile financial services, financial institutions and insurance companies, he said.
He outlined the prospect on Monday at a contract-signing event in a Dhaka hotel for a new online transaction platform.
“It may be possible by July 2027,” he said, adding that once live, all institutions would be integrated into a common interoperability framework.
He noted that instant online transactions would sharply reduce the need for cash. To support this shift, an Inclusive Instant Payment System (IIPS) will be developed.
The event, titled “Instant Payment in Bangladesh: Unveiling Inclusion Opportunities”, hinted that the platform’s governance structure has not yet been finalised, though a public-private model remains under consideration.
Mansur stressed that digitisation was essential to ensuring transparency in financial transactions and that interoperability was central to achieving that goal.
A unified system, he said, would increase transparency, reduce corruption and ultimately boost revenue collection.
Bangladesh Bank previously introduced mobile banking, the “Binimoy” system, and QR codes to reduce reliance on cash. Apart from mobile banking, none gained broad traction. Even the interoperable payment system introduced earlier this year failed to take off, with limited participation among mobile banking operators.
The interim governor later scrapped the Binimoy platform, saying it had been implemented on instructions from the previous government.
Efforts to bring marginal groups, such as rickshaw pullers, cobblers, small shop owners and street vendors, into digital transactions through QR codes also saw little response. Even bKash, established with Gates Foundation support under BRAC Bank, did not join the interoperability scheme.
Responding to questions on this mismatch, Snigdha Ali, Bangladesh Country Lead for Inclusive Financial Systems at the Gates Foundation, said the foundation only provides funding and does not intervene in operations or policy. She suggested bKash may have assessed interoperability as commercially unviable.
Governor Mansur added that the earlier interoperability attempt failed because many institutions simply did not use the platform. With Gates Foundation support, he said, Bangladesh Bank now aims to develop a new instant payments system to build a cashless national transaction landscape.
During discussions on reducing customer-level costs under IIPS, Bangladesh Bank Director Sharafat Ullah Khan said increased competition would naturally lower fees and that subsidies could also be considered.
