Technology enthusiasts expressed disappointment over the absence of a true electronic payment mechanism in the country and expressed skepticism over reaching the lofty target of billion dollar outsourcing business by 2015.
They expressed their concern while visiting SoftExpo 2011 Friday, watching some prototype of locally developed e-commerce solutions which were plagued by different limitations.
FSB, an e-commerce solution provider, presented an online transaction solution where clients can purchase different products through Visa card or Brac Bank account.
ClickBD, another major e-commerce site, brought a card named ‘Click Card’ which will allow customers to purchase products from its site.
“These solutions cover too few merchants with few products”, Rashedul Islam, a technology professional, said, pointing to one of the limitations.
Besides, the customers have to opt for with certain bank or prepaid card to complete a transaction which restricts its interoperability, he added.
Jawad, a university student, said the system won’t allow buying products that aren’t available in our country such as book, software and other intangible products like domain name and hosting services.
Stall representative of a private bank in the fair acknowledged that his bank has limited options to pay for foreign transaction due to regulatory restriction.
Apart from purchasing, there is no easy process to remit back the money earned by working on different freelancing sites, a freelancer said.
“I’ve been going to different banks to cash a cheque I got from Google, but it’s been three months with no success”, Hasan said. Hasan is a blogger who gets paid by Google for showing ads from the internet giant in his personal blog site.
Zakaria, a freelancer working at Odesk, said he faces serious problem, while receiving payment from a client residing in a foreign country, due to the impossibility of opening account in online payment sites like Paypal or Moneybookers from Bangladesh.
“Without Paypal or Moneybookers account, you’re like in a barren island in freelancing world. You can’t pay for anything, worse even, you can’t receive any payment”, Zakaria added.
Freelancers in different online forums of Bangladesh held complicated regulatory process responsible for the situation and urged the authority concerned to improve the process.
Mahboob Zaman, president of Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services (BASIS), said, “Changing the situation for bringing online payment solutions to the country will take time”. BASIS is working closely with the authorities concerned, he added.
However, AKM Fahim Mashroor, senior vice-president of BASIS, said imposing restriction often fails to deter people from using Paypal or Moneybookers. Easy access to these services will accelerate the growth of freelancing, he added.
