ONE Bank sees Bangla QR as more than a payment tool 

Bangladesh is moving towards a more inclusive, interoperable and digitally enabled payment ecosystem, and I believe Bangla QR can play an important role in that transition.

Bangladesh Bank has already placed strong emphasis on making digital payments more accessible and convenient for people across the country. As we enter the next phase of this journey, the challenge is no longer simply to introduce digital payment options, but to make them a natural part of everyday life. Bangla QR has significant potential to do that.

We are already seeing encouraging momentum in digital payment adoption. The next step is to make QR payments more accessible, convenient and familiar to both merchants and consumers.

For small merchants, awareness, confidence and ease of use will be important in encouraging wider adoption. For consumers, the opportunity is to build the habit of choosing digital payments even for small, everyday purchases. This means expanding Bangla QR acceptance to the places people visit regularly — grocery shops, pharmacies and restaurants, but also schools, hospitals, transport points and other retail locations.

At ONE Bank, we are working on both sides of this ecosystem. We are expanding merchant acceptance while making ONEApp and OK Wallet increasingly simple and convenient for customers. Our focus is not simply on increasing the number of QR acceptance points. It is about making digital payments a seamless part of everyday life and contributing to Bangladesh's journey towards a more connected and inclusive digital economy.

A practical opportunity for small businesses

For small merchants, the proposition is quite straightforward: Bangla QR can make doing business easier, more efficient and more cost-effective.

Unlike a conventional POS terminal, it requires virtually no physical infrastructure. It can also reduce the need for cash handling, minimise concerns around fake or damaged notes and simplify reconciliation. At the same time, merchants can serve customers who may not be carrying cash.

But I believe the longer-term benefit is even more important.

Digital transactions create a financial footprint for a business. A small merchant that operates largely in cash may find it difficult to demonstrate the scale and consistency of the business to a bank. A regular digital transaction history, on the other hand, can provide greater visibility into actual business cash flows.

Over time, this can help bring small businesses into the formal financial system and improve their access to working capital and other banking services. In that sense, the value of Bangla QR goes beyond payment convenience. It can also help create a clearer financial record for businesses that have traditionally operated outside the formal system.

Moving beyond separate payment ecosystems

I also see Bangla QR playing an increasingly important role in reducing our dependence on cash. Its value is not simply that it gives people another way to pay. The more important element is interoperability.

Previously, customers and merchants often had to navigate different proprietary QR ecosystems. Bangla QR creates a common national acceptance standard through which customers of participating banks, mobile financial services providers and payment service providers can transact using a single QR.

ONE Bank's own Bangla QR campaign has been built around precisely this idea of interoperability.

So, the real transformation is not another QR code. It is the gradual movement from separate payment ecosystems towards a common national digital-payment ecosystem.

This is also why I would look at Bangla QR differently when comparing it with cards or MFS payments. It does not necessarily have to compete with them. In many ways, it connects them.

Bangla QR acts as a common acceptance layer. A customer may ultimately pay from a bank account, card or MFS wallet, while the merchant needs only one interoperable QR.

For adoption to accelerate, three things will be critical. The payment journey must be extremely simple. Settlement to merchants must be fast and reliable. And the economics must remain attractive for both merchants and service providers.

Ultimately, customers will use whichever payment method is fast, simple, reliable and available everywhere. That is the benchmark Bangla QR needs to meet.

Getting the economics right

The question of merchant fees also needs to be considered in the context of adoption and long-term sustainability.

For small-value transactions and micro merchants, the cost should ideally be zero or very low, particularly during the adoption phase. At the same time, we should recognise that a reliable digital-payment ecosystem has real costs. Technology, cybersecurity, fraud prevention, merchant servicing, customer support and settlement infrastructure all require investment.

So, I would not frame the issue simply as "fee versus no fee". A differentiated approach may be more sustainable, with very low or zero charges for small-value transactions and micro merchants, while maintaining commercially viable pricing for higher-value or specialised transactions.

The objective should be to keep merchant acceptance attractive while ensuring that the ecosystem itself remains sustainable over the long term.

From payments to access to finance

One of the most important long-term opportunities may lie in how banks use the data generated through digital transactions.

Subject to consent, privacy and regulatory requirements, transaction data can help banks understand a merchant's sales patterns, seasonality, transaction frequency, average ticket size and cash flow.

This could gradually change how we finance SMEs. Instead of relying primarily on collateral or relationship-based assessment, banks could increasingly use actual transaction behaviour to support cash-flow-based lending.

For example, a small merchant with consistent digital sales could eventually become eligible for working capital, overdrafts or other financing based partly on demonstrated business cash flow.

This is where Transaction Banking, SME Banking and Digital Banking come together. Bangla QR can therefore become more than a payment mechanism. It can also become an important tool for financial inclusion and access to finance.

Beyond the retail counter

I believe Bangla QR can become one of the principal rails of a cash-light economy. But to get there, we have to think beyond retail shops.

Bangla QR should progressively become part of payments at schools and universities, hospitals, government services, utilities, transport, tourism and professional services. This broader opportunity was also identified in our original assessment of the ecosystem.

For institutional payments, there is another layer of opportunity. Information such as student IDs, invoice numbers, customer references or payment purposes could be integrated into the payment process. This would allow organisations to identify and reconcile payments automatically.

Once payment, information and reconciliation are brought together, Bangla QR becomes much more powerful than simply being a substitute for cash at a retail counter.

The next challenge is last-mile adoption

At this stage, if I had to identify one area that could accelerate Bangla QR adoption, I would point to last-mile adoption.

A lot of the core infrastructure and regulatory framework is already in place. The next challenge is ensuring that Bangla QR is visible, accessible and consistently reliable wherever people make everyday payments.

That requires a coordinated effort involving Bangladesh Bank, banks, MFS providers, PSPs, merchants and other stakeholders, along with broader consumer awareness.

Technology alone will not create a cash-light economy. Customers need to see Bangla QR at the grocery shop, pharmacy, school, hospital, restaurant and transport counter, and they need to have confidence that it will work every time.

For ONE Bank, the objective is simple: make digital payment easier than cash — for the customer, the merchant and, ultimately, the economy.