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BB to bring banks under central payment system by July

Customers will pay less for electronic transactions

Sajjadur Rahman
Factors preventing Bangladesh Bank from launching its National Payment Switch (NPS) have been resolved, and efforts are in full swing to make the services available to customers by July.
Once all the banks join the NPS, a customer using a credit or debit card from any bank will be able to make low-cost transactions through any ATM (automated teller machine) and POS (point of sales) across Bangladesh.
"We are expected to begin the NPS services on full-scale by July," said Dasgupta Asim Kumar, executive director of the central bank. Currently, BB is testing 26-27 services that will be available under the NPS.
NPS, which will be a mother payment and settlement gateway, is likely to increase the transparency of internal and cross-border electronic payments, optimise all regulatory and supervisory procedures, and reduce related costs, according to BB.
Commercial banks having an ATM, POS, e-payment gateways or mobile payment switches or connected to any other shared switch network will be able to send inter-bank payment instructions to the NPS for clearing and settlement.
In January 2012, BB signed a deal with a Singapore-based company to implement the NPS project at $5 million (Tk 40 crore), funded by the World Bank. I lowever, the central bank did not examine whether die vendor can provide the original software.
By the time the installation of hardware was completed and 80 percent of the payments were made to die firm, BB came to know that Brussels-based OpenWay Croup is the original supplier of the payment switch software across the world.
At the launch of the NPS trial services in December 2012, BB Covernor Atiur Rahman said all the banks would be connected to the
switch in a month or two. But only seven out of 56 banks have joined the NPS so far.
The issue rattled finance ministry officials who later asked the central bank to finish die project at any cost. Later, BB contacted IT Consultants Ltd, the local partner of OpenWay, to get the job done.
"NPS is moving forward and it will 'go live' fully by June," said Kazi Saifuddin Munir, chief executive of IT Consultants that also operates Q-Cash, die largest ATM network in Bangladesh.
But die initial benefit will be with ATM transactions. Once the NPS is launched and all banks join the system, an ATM card holder has to pay just Tk 10 per transaction for using any bank's booth in the country instead of the currentTk 20-Tk 40, depending on the inter-bank relationship.
Presently, there are around 6,000 ATMs across the country, of which, Dutch-Bangla Bank has 2,500 ATM