BTCL to add metro rail payment facility into its 'Alaap Pay'

State-owned Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL) has planned to incorporate metro rail and other utility payments into its wallet "Alaap Pay". 

BTCL has eyed to move up with new features so its clients could avail of different types of utility payment services under a single window.

"BTCL has future plans to integrate payment for services such as metro rail, flyover and bridges through Alaap Wallet," BTCL Managing Director Md Anwar Hossain told BSS.

Apart from these, he said, BTCL also plans to introduce utility bill payments for electricity and water through Alaap Wallet.

BTCL officials familiar with the move said that they are talking with the Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) to figure out how they could offer the services.

They also said that BTCL has already collaboration with different payment gateways. For some bill payment, it needs the permission of Bangladesh Bank. 

However, Alaap Pay does not require any permission from Bangladesh Bank for its own payment, they added. 

Initially, BTCL has developed its wallet Alaap Pay for the convenience of its customer for payment of their landphone bills. 

Meanwhile, in the wake of robust use of OTT apps for voice, messaging and other services, the state-owned company has also moved up to reshape its dialer "Alaap" application in the New Year-2025 to attract more users at home and abroad. 

To this end, BTCL is working to incorporate new features like SMS, hosted IP telephone, voice broadcast, bulk SMS, cloud storage alongside opening dedicated customer care centre for its calling app, "Alaap". 

The BTCL Managing Director earlier told BSS that they have planned to amplify the use of Alaap in every sphere of society. 

"We will boost up our marketing activities for Alaap, incorporating new features with it," he added.

Anwar Hossain said they are also working to cut tariffs to provide affordable call rates and SMS packages to the customers.

The state-owned landphone operator launched the over-the-top (OTT) calling application Alaap in March, 2021 with facilities of making call to any mobile or landphone through a unique subscriber's number.  

As WhatsApp, Telegram, Imo like apps were still dominating the Bangladeshi market with instant messaging, free calls over the internet as well as video calls, the BTCL rolled out its Bangladeshi version "Alaap" to reduce the dependency of foreign apps as well as secure the personal data of local people. 

Now, talking and chatting from "Alaap" to "Alaap" using the internet is free. But when it comes to making phone calls to a subscriber of any mobile or landline operator who is not using Alaap, the caller will have to pay the bills, at the same time as having paid for internet connectivity. Alaap user has to pay Taka 0.35 for off-net call. 

However, BTCL officials involved with the operation of Alaap wishing not to be named told BSS that Alaap has been suffering from the crisis of number allocation, as telecom regulator-Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) so far allotted a total of 20 lakh unique number in two phases, which about to finish. 

They said Alaap has now total subscriber over 19 lakh of which 16.49 lakh users are verified through NID, while another 3.94 lakh users are on queue to get verification. But, due to shortage of number, BTCL can't allow more users although there is good demand for it.

Now, Alaap has nearly 17 lakh active users, and on an average it registers over 7 lakh paid call daily, while the number of free call is 8,000 to 10,000 daily.

The officials said that Alaap has so far earned a total revenue of Tk32 crore since its inception. 

Any smartphone user can install the application from Google Play and use it like WhatsApp, Telegram, Imo or other OTT apps. If a person wants to get registered with Alaap, they will need an existing mobile phone number and a copy of his or her NID.

Like WhatsApp and Telegram, customers can register while sitting in their homes. At the end of the process, the BTCL will provide new customers with BTCL's new virtual phone numbers.