Visa, the global leader in digital payments technology, today completed 30 years of operations in Bangladesh since commencing operations in 1988. Continuing its pioneering efforts to build awareness for digital payments, Visa today unveiled Bangladesh’s first contactless card in the market and announced plans to launch an interoperable scan to pay QR payments in the market. Visa’s new products together would introduce the best of technology and mass-market solution that would help drive digital adoption across the country in years to come.
“Over the past 30 years, we have been able to forge strong partnerships with Bangladesh’s financial institutions, partners, and merchants in empowering and facilitating digital payment solutions,” said TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India & South Asia, Visa.
“It gives us immense pride to see Visa now firmly established as the leading digital solution for commerce in the country.”
As findings from Visa Consumer Payment Attitudes Study 2017 showed, 65% respondents in Bangladesh were more likely to embrace new forms of payments while 74% find an ease of transition driving the digital adoption. The Visa contactless card soon to be commercially launched by its partner banks is Visa’s contactless payment solution based on EMV chip technology. Cardholders can just wave their payment cards against the contactless reader and the payment completed instantly since there is no need to sign or enter PIN.
Separately, Visa also announced plans to launch the first-ever EMV-based interoperable QR payment solution for Bangladesh. With a mobile subscriber base of over 149M and a significant number of feature phone users amongst them, Bangladesh is potentially one of the largest markets for QR adoption in South Asia.
“From EMV pin-based cards to state-of-the-art contactless technology-based cards and soon QR based solutions, Visa has continued to be at the forefront of driving innovation in the market. While our contactless cards would allow consumers to experience state of art technology at work, with the introduction of our QR based solution, we would also be able to extend the benefits of digital payments to masses across the country. We are excited about the potential for digital payments in the country for years to come,” said TR Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India & South Asia, Visa.
As a largely cash-based economy, Bangladesh has been making rapid strides in transitioning towards a digital economy. As a recent study estimated, Dhaka, with a population of 15,817,000 and GDP of US$47.8B, could alone gain US$1.5B annual net benefits by transitioning into a digital economy. Estimated catalytic impacts for the city over the next 15 years include 34.9 basis point increase in GDP growth rate and 4.4% increase in employment.
Ever since commencing operations in the country, Visa has continued to expand its footprint along with its clients and merchant partners. Visa is currently associated with 47 banks comprising public sector banks, domestic private banks, foreign banks and over 30,000 merchants helping it offer debit, credit, commercial and prepaid services to Bangladeshis across the country.
