Visa keen to support 'Smart Bangladesh' vision with digital services

• Visa's primary objective is to increase card users in Bangladesh by expanding use of digital payments
• Visa interested in facilitating digital payments, particularly in metro and other transit systems payments
• As of May 2023, Bangladesh has 33 million card users

Visa, an American multinational financial services corporation, has expressed its keenness to collaborate with the government to support the "Smart Bangladesh" vision by providing digital services and payment solutions, and promoting awareness of digital payments among citizens.

Visa, which currently holds more than 70% market share in Bangladesh's card business, aims to extend its cooperation beyond banks and work directly with the government to enhance payment systems and tax collections, said Sandeep Ghosh, group country manager of Visa for India and South Asia, while talking to journalists on Wednesday during his visit to Dhaka.

The primary objective of this collaboration is to increase the number of card users in Bangladesh by creating awareness and expanding the use of digital payments, Sandeep said, adding that Bangladesh has approximately 30 million debit card users and around 2 million credit card users, indicating significant potential for growth in this area.

Data from the Bangladesh Bank show that there were 33 million card users as of May, representing nearly 20% of the total population.

Sandeep Ghosh expressed Visa's interest in exploring opportunities to assist the government in facilitating digital payments, particularly in areas like transit payments for metro systems and other transit options, thereby reducing the dependence on cash transactions.

Visa has already started partnering with a2i, the Bangladesh Bank, and various private organisations to enable digital payments in cattle haats, disbursement under social welfare programmes, subsidies, and other benefit schemes.

"We also want to be involved in the remittance business. Visa has already introduced the Visa Direct payment platform with 25 banks which enables remitters to send money home easily," Sandeep said.

Sandeep highlighted Visa's vision of working with the government to provide smarter digital services for citizens and businesses. To achieve this, Visa Government Solutions (VGS) can develop inclusive digital solutions that help the government better serve individuals and businesses within their communities.

He further said Visa sees four key opportunities to accelerate Bangladesh's digital government and smart cities initiatives. These include more efficient government procurement processes and expense management, streamlined disbursement of social welfare and subsidies to individuals and small and medium businesses, digitising revenue collection to make public services and transportation payments easier, and safeguarding payments data and supporting government initiatives, such as tourism recovery, urban planning, and economic health measurement through data insights.

Soumya Basu, country manager of Visa for Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan, said the government can incentivise merchants to encourage digital payments, which, in turn, will lead to more money flowing from the informal channel to the formal channel, contributing to the country's economic growth and enhancing transparency.

As per Bangladesh Bank data, the monthly transaction volume through debit and credit cards in May 2023 amounted to Tk41,600 crore.