NOAKHALI : Rekha Begum, 50, dressed with yellowish green cotton sharee was waiting in queue for cash relief at a school premise in Hatia, a remote island of Noakhali district a couple of hour before falling the cyclone storm ‘Mora’. Hailed from Laxmidia village Rekha, like others people gathered there, received Tk 5000 cash relief of German Red Cross (GRC), a humanitarian organisation after authentication with NFC (Near Field Communication) card holding in her hand, says a press release.
For the first time in Bangladesh, such kind of cash relief payment was made by Bank Asia using its agent banking digital payment platform just before fall of the natural calamity. The Bank disbursed a total of Tk.52.90 lakh to 1058 people of Hatia from morning to noon on Monday .
“We had taken every initiatives to make the challenge a success: deployed sufficient manpower even moving additional staffs from nearby district, kept alert the Bank’s Agent at Hatia and back office staffs in Dhaka and arranged uninterrupted cash support,” described Md. Ahsan UlAlam, Vice President & Head of Agent Banking Division of Bank Asia, adding, `We also maintained time-to-time communication with the officials concerned from German Red Cross (GRC) to streamline whole the process.”
M Arfan Ali, President & MD of Bank Asia who introduced Agent Banking Service in Bangladesh directly supervised whole the process of humanitarian grants payment from agent banking platform as it was great challenge for Bank Asia.
Mentionable that Bank Asia team moved to the island a day before of inclement weather falls. In coordination with the volunteer organization, the payment was made from Promoda Government High School of Rajarhaola and Laxmidia Junior High School of Laxmidia village points. The island people moved to cyclone shelters after receiving the relief grants.
In March, 2017, Bank Asia and German Red Cross (Bangladesh) signed the agreement on “Grants to the beneficiaries of GRC” with an aim to disburse GRC grants to its beneficiaries in disaster-prone areas of Bangladesh. Under the agreement, the grants were transferred to respective beneficiaries’ account opened with Bank Asia Agent Banking Service as a part of financial inclusion. Each of the beneficiaries also provided NFC card to make the payment fast.
“We are happy with this payment,” said Olaf Neussner, Delegate, Forecast Based Financing
German Red Cross Office Dhaka expressing his satisfaction with new payment modalities for disaster-prone people.
