Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission on Thursday suspended the slab-based maximum charge directive on mobile banking amid a controversy of overlapping the regulatory periphery. BTRC officials said the directive raised controversy as the mobile banking in the country is a bank-led model where mobile phone network is used as a medium and the central bank is the main regulatory authority.
The BTRC on Tuesday issued a directive for the mobile phone companies setting the charges of mobile banking for mobile phone operators.
The directive is suspended considering a previous directive of Bangladesh Bank which said up to Tk 25,000 can be transacted through mobile financial system.
‘We should have sat with the Bangladesh Bank before finalising the directive. We set the charges as there was no standard basis of mobile banking. As it is the jurisdiction of the Bangladesh Bank it should have set the rates before us,’ a senior BTRC official told New Age when asked about the suspension.
He said now the BTRC will sit with the BB over the issues and amend the directive according to the outcome.
The BTRC directive introduced slab-based charging rates for cash-in and cash-out, person to person fund transfer [P2P] and utility bill payment through mobile phone networks.
The directive said the mobile phone operators are charging different types of rates for same types of services in mobile banking and financial system.
-With New Age input
