Bangladesh Bank will ask scheduled banks to inform clients by sending SMS and email on mandatory basis if they stop their Automated Teller Machines and Pont-Of-Sale services due to unavoidable circumstances, said officials of the central bank. The BB will issue a circular tomorrow in this regard asking the banks to ensure the operating process of their ATM and POS service round the clock, a BB official told New Age on Thursday.
The central bank will ask the banks to keep sufficient money in their ATM booths so that the clients can withdraw money at any time from the booths.
Besides, the banks will have to place notice before the deactivated ATM booths, according to the official.
He said some banks were now frequently stopping their ATM and POS services without providing the clients with any notice.
‘Moreover, the clients usually plunge into difficulties due to the deactivated ATM booths. Some banks do not refill their ATM booths in due time which make crises for the clients’, he said.
The country’s electronic and online-based transactions have recently attained much popularity in the country as the total number of credit and debit cards in the country’s banking system stood at 80,85,834 as of August 31, 2013, according to central bank data.
The figure has recently increased more, but the exact number of issued credit and debit card cannot be mentioned right now as the BB is yet to conduct any survey after August last year, the central banker said.
The clients use their credit and debit cards through the ATM and POS.
The official said that the volume of transactions using ATM booths stood around Tk 1,00,000 crore in 2012, up from the previous year’s Tk 68,000 crore.
The total number of ATM booths stood at 5,232 in the banking sector as of August 2013. Of the booths, 1,359 were set up in 2012.
Dutch-Bangla Bank set up the highest number of ATM booths (2,403).
The BB survey report showed that 12 banks set up a total of 22,224 POS terminals. Of the terminals, The City Bank Ltd set up the highest 6,911 terminals.
The BB official said that the central bank had recently taken a number of initiatives to secure the transactions through the ATM and POS.
As part of the move, the central bank is going to issue the circular asking the banks to inform clients by sending SMS and email if they stop their ATM and POS services due to unavoidable circumstances.
The BB will take punitive measures against the banks which will violate the central bank’s directives about the ATM and POS services, the official said.
-With New Age input
