State-owned Sonali Bank, the country’s largest commercial bank, yesterday signed an agreement with mobile broadband service provider CityCell to avail the latter’s high-speed broadband services, to speed up remittances. Golam Anjumanarul Islam, head of business, CityCell and Sahid Hossain, deputy general manager (IT Division), Sonali Bank, signed the agreement at Sonargaon Hotel.
Sonali Bank will use the Zoom Ultra broadband facility at its 230 branches across the country, in the initial phase, and will extend it to 1,250 branches in phases, said Mehboob Chowdhury, CEO, Citycell. The service would further facilitate Sonali Bank’s automation process.
With the faster broadband facility, remittances will be done much faster than earlier, said Humayun Kabir, managing director and chief executive officer of Sonali Bank. For the first time, the bank is taking such an initiative, he added.
“With the assistance of CityCell’s communication system, we’d be able to provide good services in remote areas, which would help them collect foreign currency in a shorter timespan,” said Kabir. The bank provides 26 different free services to the government, he added. Sahid Hossain, the IT expert of the bank, said that CityCell will provide the broadband services at subsidised rates – 300Kbps at TK. 550 per month, per unit. The remote branches would also offer online banking facilities, using this service, he added.
According to the website of Sonali Bank, the bank has so far introduced online and SMS banking facilities in 34 branches across the country, and 19 more branches are set to get these facilities soon.
Mahboob Hossain, chief sales and distribution officer, Kafil HS Muyeed, chief marketing officer of CityCell, and Atiqur Rahman, deputy managing director, ANM Masrurul Huda Siraj, general manager, IT division of Sonali Bank, were present at the signing ceremony, among others.
