During the visit, the Dutch Queen, who is also the UN Secretary-General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development (UNSGSA), met Governor Fazle Kabir and discussed various issues on access to finance and importance of women's access to digital financial services.
Governor Fazle Kabir, expressed his gratitude to Queen Máxima for visiting Bangladesh Bank and briefed her about the current status of financial inclusion and woman empowerment in Bangladesh, said a BB press release.
The governor also informed the Dutch Queen about the initiatives taken by Bangladesh Bank in reaching the underserved through mobile financial services (MFS), agent banking and SME Loans.
He mentioned that Bangladesh Bank has been working to enable the mobile financial services platform interoperable.
The governor further informed the Queen that the formulation of the country’s first ever national financial inclusion strategy (NFIS) is at final stage.
Queen Máxima emphasized on the importance of introducing a national identity system including e-KYC and linking it to the digital payment platforms.
She expressed her interest about Bangladesh’s future strategies on gender gap reduction, achieving the goal of universal financial access reaping the benefit of innovation in financial sector through Fintech.
Queen Máxima also stressed the need for setting up of an innovation office at the central bank level to take care of financial innovation issues.
She expressed her satisfaction about the recent progress made by Bangladesh and assured necessary cooperation in future.