Three months timeframe set for retrospective approval
The Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has recently asked the mobile phone companies to get the service and tariff approval for mobile financial service from Bangladesh Bank. According to a BTRC letter issued on February 9, the mobile phone companies have to obtain within three months the mobile financial service and tariff approval from Bangladesh Bank through their respective banking partner.
From now on, it said, the BTRC will only give permission for network and short-code use for such mobile financial services after the mobile operators receive permission of the central bank.
‘As the MFS in our country is a bank-led model, the liability of such service and tariff falls on Bangladesh Bank,’ a BTRC official told New Age on Monday.
The BTRC decision came after the telecom regulator had issued on December 26 a slab-based maximum charge directive on MFS which sparked controversy of overlapping the regulatory periphery.
The BTRC suspended the directive two days after the issuance as controversy raised that the country’s mobile banking follows bank-led model where mobile phone network is a medium so the central bank should be the regulatory authority on the matter.
The BTRC suspended directive had introduced slab-based charging rates for cash-in and cash-out, person to person [P2P] fund transfer and utility bill payment through mobile phone networks.
The directive had said the mobile phone operators were charging different types of rate for same types of service in mobile banking and financial system.
In some cases, the mobile operators are taking higher charges from the users, it had said.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Bank has decided to formulate a cost model to determine the pricing of mobile financial services in the country after the telecom regulator came up with a directive on the matter.
BB officials said after the BTRC directive the central bank came to know that there was no cost model for the mobile banking service.
‘When the cost model is ready, the BB will sit with the BTRC and other stakeholders to finalise the rates,’ a BB official told New Age recently.
-With New Age input
