The mobile phone bankers have applied to the central bank that there should have a commercial bank in the country which will provide credit especially to them.

The proposed Mobile Bank Association of Bangladesh has submitted an application to Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman yesterday.

Such a demand comes as the country’s traditional banking system has no special rule to provide loans to half a million mobile bank agents across the country, said the association sources.

The bank, if established, will help the mobile bankers run their business getting loan facility from the proposed bank, said the people concerned.

Bank and Financial Institutions Division Secretary M Aslam Alam said they would examine the proposal after the central bank’s scrutiny.

“But the government has no immediate plan to give any permission to establish such a new commercial bank,” the secretary added.

According to the Mobile Bank Association, although there is a total of half a million mobile banking businessmen across the country, the central bank has not kept any provision to provide credit to them who transfer money from one place to another. It said the mobile bankers are now channeling remittance as well into the country.

The Mobile Bank Association has a plan to collect around Tk2,000 crore from 200,000 association members to set up the bank, the association chairman M Aminul Islam Bulu told Dhaka Tribune.

Of the amount, a sum of Tk500 crore will be deposited to Bangladesh Bank as guarantee money and the remaining figure will be used as a paid up capital of the proposed bank, he said.

Aminul Islam added if the bank got established, the National Board of Revenue would receive Tk250 crore a year from the bank’s clients in the forms of tax, VAT and trade licence fee etc.

In 2012 Bangladesh Bank approved nine private commercial banks in an expectation to help strengthen the financial inclusion programme bringing unbanked people under the banking network.

The banks included Union Bank Limited, Modhumoti Bank Limited, Farmers Bank Limited, Meghna Bank Limited, Midland Bank Limited, South Bangla Agriculture, Commerce Bank Limited, NRB Commercial Bank Limited and NRB Bank Limited. 

Meanwhile, in 2012 a survey by the Institute of Microfinance found that only 45% of the nearly 9,000 householders do have access to banks and micro-finance institutions for loans. 

The population per branch (21,065) and the ratio of loan accounts per 1,000 adults (42) suggest that the outreach of the formal financial sector in Bangladesh is lower than that in India (14,485 and 124 respectively) and Pakistan (20,340 population per branch and 47 loan accounts per 1,000), according to the report.