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“Clients are enjoying the service as they don’t need to go to branches to settle small transactions,” he said.

Transactions through internet banking will go up significantly in the days ahead as the central bank has recently taken several initiatives to popularise the digital banking services, Hossain said.

“The central bank has come up with regulations to drive the digitalisation agenda forward in the last several months,” said Enamul Huque, country head of corporate, commercial and institutional banking at Standard Chartered Bangladesh.

Huque is confident that the changes during the pandemic would accelerate digitalisation in the financial industry.

The Bangladesh Bank increased the limit of inter-bank fund transfers through internet banking in September with a view to giving a boost to IT-based financial services.

Clients are allowed to transfer a maximum of Tk 5 lakh per day against a previous ceiling of Tk 2 lakh.

People are using the internet banking platform more than ever before to maintain social distancing and protect themselves from the rogue virus, said a high official of the central bank.

The central bank also doubled the ceiling of a single transaction to Tk 1 lakh from Tk 50,000.

Clients are permitted to settle as much as 10 transactions per day, which was five previously.

Internet banking will reach its next level when banks start opening micro merchant accounts on a massive scale, said a central bank official.

Such merchant accounts allow small businesses – vegetable vendors and owners of small shops or tea stalls –to accept bills from clients’ accounts and credit cards. This can be enabled through the use of quick response (QR) codes.

“This will help people embrace digital means, sidestepping manual payment methods,” said the official.

The central bank rolled out an interoperable QR code in January as part of its efforts to give a boost to cashless transactions across the country, especially in rural areas.

The uniform digital payment method named “Bangla QR” will help clients pay bills for goods and services by using the mobile apps of banks and mobile financial and payment service providers.