Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The fast growing mobile financial service (MFS) has come under the scanner of intelligence agencies and Bangladesh Bank (BB) after allegation that a section of the service providers is using it as a tool of laundering money allowing over-the-counter transactions, sources said.
According to the intelligence reports, the service has become a favourable tool of laundering money to tourists groups, human and drug traffickers in the country’s bordering areas.
“These groups reportedly sending money to Myanmar and India to finance terrorism and support human and drug trafficking. They formed a nexus with a section of the service providers to laundered money allowing them over-the-counter transactions (OTC),” the report says. The agencies have also reported that such crimes are mostly taking place in the north and the south-western bordering districts.
Home Ministry sources said that many of the MFS agents mostly from ‘bKash’ were engaged in such a financial crime by using their personal handsets, personal mobile money accounts and multiple SIMs to conduct the OTC transactions.
Launched in 2011, bKash is a joint venture of BRAC Bank and it captures 50 per cent of the country’s mobile financial service market followed by DBBL that holds 28 per cent share of the service.
“Although the MFS guideline introduced by BB does not allow OTC transactions, the MFS agents formed an unholy nexus with the criminal groups”, a Home Ministry official told The New Nation on Friday on condition of anonymity.
He also said that MFS agents have also been involved with money laundering by transferring money beyond their limit.
“We have already intensified intelligence surveillance on the MFS agents to oversee their activities so that they can be traced,” he said.
He further said that the intelligent agencies also sent their reports to BB asking it to take preventive measures.
According to a study, money transfer without having mobile phone account, known as OTC transactions, dominates 33 per cent of all transactions per day.
About 22 per cent of Bangladeshis use mobile money and only three per cent of them have mobile money accounts.
Meanwhile, the central bank directed the authorities of BRAC Bank to bring the bKash agents under strict vigilance following their alleged involvement in ‘digital money laundering’.
The Payment System Department (PSD) of the central bank on Tuesday gave the directive sending letters to the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of BRAC Bank and bKash.
Admitting the matter, M. Mahfuzur Rahman, Executive Director and Deputy Head of Bangladesh Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) of BB told The New Nation that the central bank had taken the matter seriously and asked the authorities of BRAC Bank to run the b-Kash service in fully complaint manner.
“BB also conducted investigation taking cognizance of the intelligent reports. We have also found several irregularities by bKash agents in various areas in the country,” he said.
He further said, the BFIU of the central bank is closely monitoring the financial transactions of mobile financial service providers as part of its routine job to prevent any kind of illegal financial flow from the country.
“The OTC transaction in the mobile banking system is the biggest concern of money laundering in our country,” said a senior executive of a private bank, adding, “It’s a digital way of money laundering.”
He urged the regulatory bodies, including the central bank, to play more proactive role to stop such a digital money laundering. “If they fail to prevent it, the economy will face a serious setback from such kind of illegal financial flow,” he warned.
