Existing method to continue until BB directive
Bangladesh Bank has decided to formulate a cost model to determine the pricing of mobile financial services in the country after the telecom regulator came up with a directive on the matter.
The decision came following a meeting between the BB and the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission on January 16 for deciding the regulatory periphery to settle the issue.
On December 26, 2013 the BTRC had issued a slab-based maximum charge directive on mobile banking which sparked controversy of overlapping the regulatory periphery.
The BTRC suspended the directive two days after the issuance as controversy raised over the regulatory authority for such rate setting.
The country’s mobile banking follows bank-led model where mobile phone network is a medium so the central bank should be the regulatory authority on the matter.
‘It is the responsibility of Bangladesh Bank as mobile financing in the country is a bank-led model. Initially some rates were set by the BTRC as such services were newly introduced then,’ a senior BB official told New Age on Monday.
He said now the BB would conduct a study to formulate the cost modelling of mobile banking.
‘After the BTRC directive we came to know that there is no cost model for the mobile banking service. As long as we don’t have cost model we cannot determine the rates,’ he said.
When the cost model is ready, the BB will sit with the BTRC and other stakeholders to finalise the rates, the official said.
Meanwhile, the BTRC has decided to follow its previous method for approval of mobile financial service after the suspension of the new directive on the matter, said BTRC officials.
As the new directive will not come to in action, there is no other way but to follow the previous method of approving the mobile financial services, they said.
The BTRC suspended directive had introduced slab-based charging rates for cash-in and cash-out, person to person [P2P] fund transfer and utility bill payment through mobile phone networks.
The directive had said the mobile phone operators were charging different types of rates for same types of service in mobile banking and financial system.
In some cases, the mobile operators are taking higher charges from the users, it had said.
‘All the issues still exist but until the BB comes up with any solution, we have to follow the earlier rules where mobile companies and the banks determine the rates through bipartite agreement,’ a senior BTRC official told New Age on Monday.
-With New Age input
