Cassettes, cards, and a contactless future: NFC’s expanding role in Bangladesh

As Valentine's Day rolled around earlier this year, the store CassetteTag.Bangla had a hard time keeping up with the demand for their NFC cassettes. This item allowed users to incorporate the newest albums into an outdated item—classic cassettes. 

Rahatul Islam Abri, founder of CassetteTag.Bangla, shared that they had completely sold out of cassettes and were pondering shifting to vinyl with the same concept of NFC tags after seeing its impressive demand. 

Businesses such as Ventro offer NFC consumer products as well. Their Genesis wallet allows users to share contact information through the wallet, becoming a "digital business card". This has proved to be a useful and eco-friendly feature for corporate workers, where the exchange of contact information is a key part of everyday life.

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NFC technology, or Near-Field Communication, helps people make transactions, pair devices, and transfer data without wires or PINs. To exchange data, the devices just have to be within centimetres of each other.

Generally, NFC is associated with payment systems, known as a one-tap solution for making payments. Bangladesh, too, is migrating towards a future of wireless payments, and NFC technology is one of them. However, NFC technology has found an entirely different space in Bangladesh, through consumer products. 

It is undeniable that wireless payment using NFC is slowly growing in popularity. As the life cycles of old cards end, banks offer new ones that allow users to make payments without the hassle of PIN numbers. However, users still remain wary about safety. 

Even as the country migrates towards such a system, many users remain wary. 

"Since cards using NFC do not need a PIN number, it has its risks while making transactions or even if the card is lost. You could say that the card is exposed to some extent, and that is its biggest drawback," shared BM Zahid ul Haque, an Experienced CISO and Cyber Digital Transformation Strategist

Potential NFC-related scams include skimming scams, where devices capture card data from a distance, allowing scammers to make purchases or create fake cards.

To counter this risk, Bangladesh Bank imposed a limit on transactions, which increased from Tk3,000 to Tk5,000 in 2023. 

According to Haque, even though the "risk will not disappear", the most important way to tackle these scams is through public awareness. 

An untapped market

Abri, a college student, is an avid collector of memorabilia such as vinyls and Walkman players, and with his venture, he wanted to share his love for collectables with people. 

Essentially, users can access music albums with a tap using their phone, all through the technology of NFC. 

According to him, the business has been performing very well, and he attributes this success to two factors: the novelty factor of NFCs and the convenience of the business itself.

"The concept of the product is quite new, so it is performing well. But customers love the novelty factor of the cassettes themselves. The feature of the NFC tag is an added bonus that makes the collectable item usable," shared Abri.

Adding a new edge to products is also quite easy; it does not require the manufacturer to have a complicated setup. In fact, Abri can do most operations from home. NFC tags are readily available at different price points, and all Abri has to really worry about is the availability of old cassettes and whether they will get damaged during delivery. He can integrate the NFC tag from the comfort of his home. 

His business model is reminiscent of gift shops offering frames and keychains that showcase a QR code or a Spotify code. However, Abri feels like it is harder to hide those codes on the surface of the cassette. The NFC provides a much more "authentic" look to it, hiding the modern twist on the item. 

Businesses such as Ventro offer NFC consumer products as well. Their Genesis wallet allows users to share contact information through the wallet, becoming a "digital business card". This has proved to be a useful and eco-friendly feature for corporate workers, where the exchange of contact information is a key part of everyday life. 

According to Utshob Sharif, founder of Ventro, the product has been pretty well-received by customers. 

The challenge, however, arises from a lack of awareness among local consumers and the limitations of old devices. 

"From my experience, I noticed a lot of people are not aware that their phones use NFC, and even if they did know, they rarely are able to use it. It is a very underused feature," shared Abri.

He continues, "I have to be very hands-on with customer support. I guide customers, especially Android users, to figure out how to enable NFC on their phones. Other times, some customers remain wary about purchasing as they don't know whether the person they will gift it to will be able to use the NFC feature."

Sharif also faces a similar challenge. "One of the challenges we faced is that a lot of people had mistaken the NFC feature as a tracker," he shared.

The brand realised that a lack of awareness would be an obstacle they would have to conquer early on when they tested the product with their customers. 

To overcome this challenge, he renamed the feature as 'VentroTap'. Though the new name isn't self-explanatory, the name is simple and sounds like a personalised feature for the brand. According to Sharif, it has proved to be a successful move as the customer feedback has been positive.  

Abri also highlighted how the cassettes will be unusable for individuals with very old phone models, as the phone needs to use NFC technology.

Even if the products have a significant learning curve, many users were able to navigate their way through it and learn more about NFC.

Furthermore, Haque also adds that the information attached to the NFC tag can be accessed by others, and so, any sensitive information integrated into the NFC tag can be at risk. So, he advises users to be cautious of the information they attach to NFC consumer products. 

Yet, Haque remains optimistic about the future of NFC in Bangladesh. He shares how biometrics can help mitigate many of the challenges of NFC products.