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The amount of transactions through mobile financial services rose by 49.91 per cent or Tk 19,857 crore year-on-year in March.
In March 2021, the amount of MFS-based transactions reached Tk 59,642 crore from Tk 39,785 crore in the same month of 2020, showed the latest Bangladesh Bank data.
The growth in transactions through MFS in March was higher than the growth in the previous two months.
The year-on-year growth in transactions through MFS in January and February was 35.99 per cent and 33.2 per cent respectively.
The amount of transactions in March was the second highest after the Tk 62,999 crore in transaction value in July 2020 when the government made salary disbursements through MFS mandatory for the export-oriented industries a must for receiving stimulus fund from the government.
The export-oriented industries received over Tk 10,500 crore in stimulus fund at the cost of 2 per cent interest to pay salaries of their workers after the onset of Covid outbreak on March 8, 2020.
Apart from the stimulus fund disbursement, the MFS has been attracting additional public attention gradually as MFS operators are coming up with new services and offers, officials of MFS operators said.
The businesses said that the growing market competition had compelled the leading MFS operators, including bKash, Nagad and Rocket, to launch fresh campaigns to attract customers amid the pandemic.
With a new multinational telecom operator in association with Trust Bank set to launch its MFS service in the country, the existing active MFS operators are trying to strengthen their market grip with attractive offers and services.
However, the customers acquired by the MFS operators in March dropped sharply compared with the number of customers acquired by the MFS operators in recent months.
With the acquisition of 4.27 lakh new customers in March, the total number of MFS users rose to 10.28 crore.
The acquisition of customers in March 2021 was the lowest after August 2019 when the MFS operators added 4.94 lakh customers.
In February, the MFS operators acquired 18.15 lakh new customers.
However, the BB data showed that the number of active subscribers stood at 3.46 crore at the end of March from 3.42 crore customers in the previous month.
