Former governor of Bangladesh Bank Dr Atiur Rahman today said the central bank is doing a tremendous job at digitalising the financial sector of the country.

As a result, transaction of around Tk 3000 crore is being done daily by mobile financial services (MFS) and people of all income groups, in both rural and urban areas, are able to use digital services, he said.

Dr Atiur said this while speaking at a seminar as the chief guest today. The seminar, held at a Dhaka hotel, was on ‘Transformation of the Paper Money to Digital: Taking from and Making of Central Bank Digital Currency’, organised by Scholars Bangladesh, a society of non-resident Bangladeshis.

The former Bangladesh Bank governor focused on development of interoperable facility among mobile financial services and banks which will accelerate inclusion of more people on the digital platform.

He also suggested the central bank for developing a digital infrastructure where it will easily possible to detect real transactions and financial crimes.

Jamaluddin Ahmed FCA, PhD presented a keynote paper on the topic of the seminar. In the paper, he mentioned a study of IMF and Financial Intelligent Unit report that Bangladesh lost around US$ 50 billion in six years, from 2009 to 2015.

It shows that money laundering activities has increased by 62.33 percent through over and under invoicing.

Kamal S. Quadir, chief executive officer of bKash spoke at the seminar as the special guest.

Quadir suggested four key fundamental activities for developing stronger digital transaction systems such as unified legal frame, proper tracking or identifying the nationality of individuals, robust and global up to the mark technology used, and proper governance.

Professors and technology experts joined the seminar in person and virtually from different countries.