The bank makes use of its digital capabilities to bring in financial inclusion:
Bangladesh’s joint venture bank Dutch-Bangla Bank, often called DBBL, had made its first investment in technology way back in 2004, when it set up a large ATM network and introduced debit cards. Now, 20 years later, this investment is helping the bank to have a clear edge over others putting in creditable performance even during the periods of recent crises like the covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, which impacted global economy in no small measure.
The bank, a Dutch-Bangladesh joint venture – the first Bangladeshi-European joint venture – considers its foray into debit cards as a key decision that helped it to make significant strides in not just getting record number of customers but in offering significantly improved customer service. The bank’s MD & CEO Abul Kashem Md Shirin has said that it is the debit cards that allowed customers to withdraw money at any time from any place, even outside banking hours and the bank now has 15 million debit card holders.
ROCKET, MOBILE BANKING
Its sound footing in technology has helped it to be a pioneer in mobile services. Its Rocket, the mobile banking system, facilitates branchless banking and has become an effective tool in financial inclusion. Rocket today offers services such as cash-in, cash out, merchant payment, utility payment, salary disbursement, foreign remittance, government allowance disbursement and cash withdrawal using mobile devices ate ATMs. In effect, it is real-time on-line banking anytime, anywhere in the country.
Technology has also helped the bank to offer access to customers to banking and advanced payment transactions at affordable costs from an authorized agent point anywhere in the country. The service is very effective in remote areas.
Rocket has a customer base of 30 million.
Abul Kashem recalls that the bank’s initial investment in technology was Tk1 billion and at the current level it is in the range of Tk12 billion. It has heavy investments in its 2 tier-4 data centers. It now intends to continue to invest heavily in technology, IT security and quality manpower.
UNIQUE AGENT BANKING
Besides its Rocket, the bank is also making use of Agent Banking system as tool to accelerate financial inclusion in the country. The bank has set up a network of agents to carry out banking transactions from their outlets like a shops and function as distributors under a legal agreement with the bank providing a wide array of financial services. The system has a unique network of agents, super agents and DSRs that help increase efficiency and reach of the services.
Under this system, the bank offers biometric-based services in rural and semi-rural areas so that unbanked citizens can join the formal financial sector from their doorsteps. Customers can make deposits, payments and withdrawals, there are courtyard meetings to address rural customer relationship gaps, loans can be obtained and women are encouraged to open accounts.
The bank has implemented a system called Host Card Emulation, or HCE, which uses its Nexus Pay to offer a fast and more secure payment gateway. Customers can download their debit and credit card, agent banking card and Rocket account information to smartphones and using the token, do transactions in-store, in-app and online within a single application without exposing their actual card information.
FAST TRACKS
The bank has also evolved what it called Fast Tracks, which are small outlets that enable the customers to use banking facilities in the sub-districts of the country. Apart from the services like cash withdrawals and deposits, Fast Tracks ensures presence of banking officers to solve customer queries and provide other facilities like assisting customers in opening bank accounts or Rocket accounts, issue debit or credit cards and offer assistance in SME funding.
Dutch-Bangla Bank is investing in a proposed digital bank in Bangladesh, called Digi10, aiming to expand its network across the county quickly and retain existing smart customers. The other banks that are part of this venture are City Bank, Eastern Bank, Mercantile Bank, Midland Bank, Mutual Trust Bank, NCC Bank, Prime Bank, Pubali Bank and Trust Bank. The bank has uniquely pursued automation as a CSR activity as it never intended to earn profits from this step. Another unique aspect of its digitization is that it has allowed some of the local banks to use its infrastructure instead of setting up their own systems and incur huge expenses.
This article has been compiled based on publicly available information on the web, particularly the bank’s own website.
Read more:
