Mobile money transfer service provider bKash has 50 per cent market share in the country while new providers are expanding rapidly, Kenya-based international organisation Helix Institute of Digital Finance said in a report on Monday. In the Agent Network Accelerator Survey Report 2014, the Helix also said transaction volumes and profits in mobile financial service were low in the country compared to the East African countries.
It also said that the support structures for such service were still developing.
bKash is dominating the market in mobile financial service with half of the market share, the report said, adding, ‘However, the dominance of the market leader is not as pronounced as in Kenya – with M-PESA’s 90 per cent market share.’
Dutch-Bangla Bank’s mobile financial service is the second largest in the country with 28 per cent market share while United Commercial Bank’s UCash has 14 per cent, Islami Bank Bangladesh’s mCash has 6 per cent and other service providers has 2 per cent market share, said the Helix report.
The report said that 57 per cent of the agents of MFS had less than one-year experience
and were non-dedicated, ‘While bKash is the dominant provider, other providers seem to be quickly building their networks on top of bKash, meaning that the majority of agents are now non-exclusive,’ said the report.
The survey was conducted on 2,490 agents in metropolitans, districts, upazila headquarters and villages during March-April 2014.
It also said 75 per cent of agents earned less than $100 per month, ‘But since most agents in Bangladesh are non-dedicated and have alternate revenue streams, lower levels of profitability might still be sufficient.’
Helix said during qualitative research, it was seen that overcharging customers was common in over the counter service in the country, ‘often to the range of 20-30 per cent more than provider pricing.’
According to the research, 22 per cent Bangladeshis use mobile money, but only 3 per cent have mobile money accounts.
It also found that the lowest number of accounts was being opened in financially excluded rural areas.
‘Perhaps account opening needs a channel that is separate from the transaction channel,’ suggested the report.
The report also said that 13 per cent of the mobile money transaction service customer in Bangladesh experienced fraud.
The agents face service downtime eight times in a month while only 6 per cent agents get prior notice of downtime, the report also said.
Helix has conducted the research under a programme of Agent Network Accelerator which is a collaboration of MicroSave, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, UN Capital Development Fund and International Finance Corporation.
-With New Age input
