Building bKash: Enabling an inclusive digital financial ecosystem in Bangladesh
How can technology help people in the margins? The quest to find answers led Kamal Quadir to start bKash, the fintech solution that is now synonymous with digital payments in Bangladesh. Valued at two billion dollars, bKash is backed by global giants such as the Ant Group of Ali Baba, the SoftBank Vision Fund, the International Finance Corporation, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Until Mobile Financial Services started to be offered in 2011, millions of Bangladeshis with small transaction capacity could not access services offered by traditional brick and mortar banks. Leveraging the network effect of Bangladesh’s ubiquitous mobile infrastructure, and a robust network of over 330 thousand agents trained to serve as “human ATMs”, bKash, today, is making financial services accessible to people with even the most basic cell phones. It has created an inclusive digital financial ecosystem offering utility payments for rural electricity, a wage solution for factory workers, remittance transfer for migrant workers, and other services like digital nano loans, small savings, and insurance plans. How did bKash become a financial lifeline for millions of the previously unbanked? Join us at #GDDF2023 to find out…