Bangladesh Bank

BB-AFI Joint Learning Programme on Digital Financial Services

4-8 December 2017, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Overview

Bangladesh Bank (BB) and the Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) will host a Joint
Learning Programme (JLP) in Dhaka, Bangladesh from 4 to 8 December 2017. This
programme will provide a platform for peer learning on practical ways of formulating
enabling policy, rules and regulations for Digital Financial Services (DFS). It will also
provide a broad idea how market players implement those successfully to build DFS and
the role of efficient DFS in the country’s economic growth. BB will also share their
experience of the journey of creating a DFS framework to achieve fast, secure and
affordable payment systems for all citizens in Bangladesh. It will also highlight the
experience of monitoring and overseeing the payment systems and the policy that has
taken to manage the risk particularly arise from the new payment model. Participants will
include policymakers and regulators from AFI member institutions contemplating to
spearhead development of DFS in their own countries and/or those in the early stages of
DFS implementation. This JLP forms part of AFI’s overall capacity-building programme, in
response to AFI members’ growing interest to establish and to operate efficient DFS in
accordance with own country context.

Agenda

Day 1: Monday, December 4, 2017; Setting the Scene

09:00 – 09:30 Registration

(30 min)
09:30 – 10:00 Introduction and Opening Remarks
(30 min) - Welcome Address by Mr. Md. Abdur Rahim, Executive Director, BB

- Speech by Mr. Norbert Mumba, Deputy Executive Director, AFI

- Inaugural Speech by Chief Guest- Mr. S. K. Sur Chowdhury, Deputy

Governor, BB

10:00 -10:15 Group Photograph

(15 min)
10:15 – 10:45 Tea Break
(30 min)
10:45-11:15 Introduction of Participants, General Overview and Objectives of the JLP
(30 min)
- Introduction to AFI’s Capacity Building Programme – Ms. Madhurantika
Moulick, Capacity Building Manager, AFI

- Introduction of Participants and Ice-breaking

11:15 – 12:00 Session 1
(45 min) Financial System of Bangladesh: Role of BB as a Central Bank

Session Summary
This session will provide an overview of financial sector of Bangladesh. It will
also cover the broad overview of country’s existing payment systems, also will
give an idea about the target of Government with regards to DFS in Vision 2021
and 7th Five Years Plan. Session will also focus on Strategic Plans of BB for DFS
and how BB will align these plans to meet the goals of Government.

Format
PowerPoint Presentation (30 Min), Q & A (15 min)

Speaker
Dr. Faisal Ahmed, Chief Economist, BB

12:00 – 12:45 Session 2A

(45 min) Financial Inclusion as a Government’s Priority Agenda for Development and
Growth Perspective

Session Summary
This session will explore the ideas about Government’s initiative in digitization
of various Government Services with special focus on DFS. Session will also
focus on Government’s future plan of accommodating various payment
initiatives for G2P payments and also on overall stands of Government in case
of disruptive innovation.

Format
PowerPoint Presentation (30 min), Q & A (15 min)

Speaker
Mr. Arijit Chowdhury, Additional Secretary, Financial Institutions Division,
Ministry of Finance, Government of Bangladesh

12:45 – 14:00 Lunch Break

(75 min)
14:00-14:45 Session 2B
(45 Min) Role of Digital Financial Inclusion in Government Initiatives – A Perspective
of India

- Role of DFS in achieving various Government goal regarding payment

- Learning from digitizing G2P payments in India from policy, regulatory and
implementation perspective
- Various initiatives undertaken by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and
Government of India towards digitization and less cash society – Learning and
the way forward

Format
PowerPoint Presentation (30 min), Q & A (15 min)

Speaker:
Mr. Brij Raj, General Manager and Regional Head for Financial Inclusion,
Reserve Bank of India

2
14:45 – 15:45 Session 3A
(60 min) Designing a Digital Payment Architecture to Reach the Excluded and to
Enhance the Financial Services for the Included

 Sub-session 1: DFS – Policy Manager will briefly talk about the DFS WG, its
objectives and key work streams.
 Sub-session 2: DFS Ecosystem in Bangladesh

Session Summary
- This session will familiarize participants with the structure and resources of
the two countries (Bangladesh and Zambia) DFS ecosystem. It will highlight
the Growth of DFS in the country with respect to – transaction amounts,
transaction values, types of transactions, types and number of agents,
geographical coverage, key stakeholders and key regulations.
- Session will also focus on what is working well (Strengths) and what is
needed to improve (Challenges) in that country
- What are the plans for going forward?

Format
PowerPoint Presentation (25 min each), Moderator (15 min), Q & A (20 min)

Speakers:
Moderator: Mr. Ali Ghiyazuddin Mohammad, DFS-Policy Manager, AFI
Mr. Shah Zia-Ul Haque, Joint Director, BB and DFS WG Member, AFI

15:45 – 16:00 Tea Break

(15 min)
16:00 – 17:00 Session 3B
(60 min) Designing a Digital Payment Architecture to Reach the Excluded and to
Enhance the Financial Services for the Included (Continued…..)

Sub-session 3: DFS Ecosystem in Zambia

Sub-session 4: DFS Ecosystem in El Salvador

Sub-session 5: DFS Policy Manager will moderate discussions among three

countries and open the floor for Q & A

Format
PowerPoint Presentations (15 min each), Moderator (20 min), Q & A (10 min)

Speakers
Moderator: Mr. Ali Ghiyazuddin Mohammad, DFS-Policy Manager, AFI
Mr. Muuka Madubeko, Manager-Payment System Operations, Bank of Zambia
Ms. Hazell Raquel Del Cid Marroquin, Analyst, Financial System Development
Banco Central de El Salvador

3
Day 2: Tuesday, December 5, 2017; Innovations in DFS

09:00 – 09:15 Preliminaries

(15 min) Quick Recap of Day 1 and Overview of Day 2 Agenda

Facilitator
Representative from BB and AFI

09:15 – 10:15 Session 4

(60 min) Digitising Remittance Inflows – Learning from India

- Role of digital technologies in controlling informal remittances

(hundi/hawala) - both domestic and international - in India.
- Policy and regulatory initiatives undertaken to mitigate AML/CFT and
other risks related to digitization of remittances inflows.

Format
PowerPoint Presentation (45 min), Q & A (15 min)

Speaker:
Mr. Brij Raj, General Manager, Financial Inclusion and Development
Department, Reserve Bank of India

10:15 – 11:15 Session 5

(60 min) DFS in Disbursement of Remittance in Bangladesh: Scope, Opportunity and
Threats

Session Summary
Moderator will open the floor providing a brief idea about role played by BB in
enabling DFS to disburse domestic and international remittances. Three
speakers from three related departments of remittance disbursement of BB
will discuss the issue from their department’s perspective:
 Representative from Foreign Exchange Policy Department (FEPD) will talk
about major policies of Bangladesh in disbursement of cross-border
remittance, how the technology is adopted in line of these policies in
disbursement of foreign remittances and how this affect the remittance
market.
 Representative from Payment Systems Department (PSD) will discuss how
various new payment initiatives expedite the remittance disbursement
within the country.
 Representative from Bangladesh Financial Intelligent Unit (BFIU) will
discuss about the risk and challenges arise from introduction of these
new policies.
 Representative from commercial bank will give a brief idea on how they
adopt central bank’s policy and what are the challenges in doing so.

Format
Panel Discussion (7.5 min each), Moderator (15 min), Q & A (15 min)

Speakers
Moderator: Dr. Md. Habibur Rahman, General Manager, BB
Mr. Mohammad Akhlasuddin, Joint Director, Payment Systems Department, BB
Mr. Md. Shafiul Alam, Joint Director, Foreign Exchange Policy Department, BB
Mr. Md. Rashed, Joint Director, Bangladesh Financial Intelligent Unit, BB
Mr. Junaid Masroor, Senior Executive Vice President, Bank Asia Ltd.

4
11:15 – 11:30 Tea Break
(15 min)
11:30 – 12:45 Session 6
(75 min) MFS- Innovation Vs Oversight: Finding the Right Balance

Session Summary
Moderator will open the floor providing a brief idea about the conflict of
stringent regulation and disruptive innovation and how it is dealt globally.
 Two speakers from two MFS provider will discuss their adopted internal
control and compliance, their various new in-house initiatives to
provide the maximum to the customers and how they align these
initiatives with regulations and oversight policy of BB.
 Representatives of BB will talk about oversight policies of Bangladesh in
MFS, what are the objectives, how market is acting with respect to
that, and what is BB’s stand point in case of innovation.
 Moderator will sum up the whole idea and participants will be divided into
two groups and will express their opinion as a group.

Format
Panel Discussion and Group Debate.
Discussants and Moderator (10 min each), Group Debate (30 min), Q & A (15
min)

Speakers
Moderator: Ms. Madhurantika Moulick, Capacity Building Manager, AFI
Ms. Evana Akter, Joint Director, Payment Systems Department, BB
Mr. Sheikh Md Monirul Islam, Chief External and Corporate Affairs Officer &
CAMLCO, bKash Limited
Mr. Firoz Kabir, First Assistant Vice President, Financial Inclusion Division,
Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited.

12:45 – 14:00 Lunch Break

(75 min)
14:00 – 15:15 Session 7
(75 min) Exploitation of DFS for Illicit Activity in Bangladesh: Empirical Study and
Way Forward

Session Summary
Each speaker from BB and commercial bank will discuss the abuse of DFS/MFS
platform highlighting some real-life case studies.
 Representative from BFIU will talk about risk mitigation mechanism that
regulators can undertake to avoid abuse of DFS platforms.
 Representative from commercial bank will talk about how they adopt the
risk mitigating regulations and what sort of challenges they are still
facing.

Format
PowerPoint Presentation (30 min each), Q & A (15 min)

Speakers
Mr. A.K.M. Ramizul Islam, Joint Director, Bangladesh Financial Intelligence
Unit, BB and GSP WG Primary member, AFI
Mr. M M Rafiqur Rahman, Additional Managing Director, United Commercial
Bank Limited.

5
15:15 – 15:30 Tea break
(15 min)
15:30 – 17:00 Session 8
(90 min) Sharing AFI Member Countries' Experience of AML/CFT and Oversight
Experience in Dealing with Innovation in DFS

Session Summary
Moderator will open the session sharing some experience of Bangladesh.
Representative from Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Malaysia will share their
country’s experience. The presentation will briefly cover growth of DFS in the
country, risk events, regulatory response to manage and mitigate risks and at
the same time how they provide enabling regulatory environment that fosters
innovation.

Format
Panel Discussion (20 min each), Moderator (15 min), Q & A (15 min)

Speakers:
Moderator: Dr. Md. Kabir Ahmed, General Manager, BB
Mr. Fabian Ladislaus Kasole, Bank Officer, Oversight & Policy, Bank of Tanzania
Mr. Josephat Mutepfa, Deputy Director, National Payments System, Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe
Mr. Othman Bin Jupri, Manager, Money Services Business Regulation
Department, Bank Negara Malaysia
17:00 – 17:30 Briefing about the Field Visit on the Next Day
(30 min)
Facilitator
Officials from concerned visiting places

18:00 – 21:30 Official Dinner-Hosted by AFI

(3.30 hrs) (18.00-18.30 Transfer from Hotel to Dinner Venue)

Venue: The Westin Dhaka

(21.00-21.30 Transfer from Dinner Venue to Hotel)
Transportation will be provided by BB

Day 3: Wednesday, December 6, 2017; Field Visit

07:00 – 16:00 Field Visit to Gazipur

(9 hrs) Transportation will be provided by BB

16:00 – 17:00 Session 9

(60 min) Debriefing about the Field Visit at the Hotel Venue

Facilitator
Officials of visited places

Day 4: Thursday, December 7, 2017, DFS Plus

09:00 – 09:15 Preliminaries

(15 min) Quick Recap of Day 3 and Overview of Day 4 Agenda

Facilitator
Representative from BB and AFI

6
09:15 – 10:30 Session 10
(75 min) Experience of Non-Governmental Organization(NGO) and Micro Finance
Institutes(MFI) in Disbursing Remittance and Working as an Agent of
Banks/MFS

Panel Discussion
Moderator will open the floor providing a brief idea about the benefits, market
mechanism and controls are in place for disbursement of remittance through
NGO-MFIs. He will also discuss how Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA) is
accommodating DFS in various services of NGO-MFIs.
Representative from two NGO-MFIs will share their field-level experience is
disbursing remittance. They may also share how they are using technology in
disbursement process.
Representative from Commercial Bank will share nomination, monitoring,
operating process and challenges in disbursement of remittance with NGO-
MFIs.

Format
Panel Discussion (15 min each), Moderator (15 min), Q & A (15 min)

Discussants
Moderator: Mr. Amalendu Mukherjee, Executive Vice Chairman, Microcredit
Regulatory Authority
Mr. S.M.A.Rakib, Assistant Coordinator-Special Program, BURO Bangladesh
Mr. Tarik Sayed Harun, Assistant Director, COAST Trust
Ms. Areefa Akhter, Senior Assistant Vice President, AB Bank Limited.

10:30 – 11:00 Tea Break

(30 min)
11:00 – 12:45 Session 11
(105 min) G2P Payment through MFS.

Session Summary
Moderator will open the session providing idea about internationally adopted
policies and practices regarding G2P payments. Representative from the
Government of Bangladesh will talk about various government initiatives taken
in this regard, who are the major stakeholders, how MFS becomes an useful
tool and what sort of problems they are facing in disbursing G2P payment
through MFS. Representatives of MFS will talk about how they are managing
G2P payment, what sort of challenges they are facing and what remedy
measures they have designed.

Format
Panel Discussion (15 min each), Moderator (20 min), Q & A (25 min)

Speakers
Moderator: Mr. Ali Ghiyazuddin Mohammad, DFS-Policy Manager, AFI
Mr. Sheikh Farid, Deputy Secretary, Finance Division, Ministry of Finance,
Government of Bangladesh
Dr. Shahadat Khan, Chief Executive Officer, Pragati Systems Limited
Mr. Zahid Mansur, First Assistant Vice President, Financial Inclusion Division,
Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd.
Mr. Moinuddin Mohammed Rahgir, Chief Financial Officer, bKash Limited
12:45 – 14:00 Lunch Break
(75 min)

7
14:00 – 15.15 Session 12
(75 min) Women Entrepreneurship through SME: Regulations and Case Study

Session Summary
Representative from BB and commercial bank will talk about the SME
regulations and how it encourages participation of women entrepreneurs,
market mechanism: strength, weakness and opportunity. Two women
entrepreneurs will share real life experience.

Format
PowerPoint Presentation/Open Discussion (15 min each), Q & A (15 min)

Speakers
Ms. Latifa Khanam, Joint Director, BB and SMEF WG Primary Member, AFI
Mr. Ahmed Rashid Joy, General Manager and Head of SME, IDLC Finance Ltd
Ms. Halima Khatun Mukta, Proprietor, Mukta Sharee Fashion and Mridula
Hosthoshilpo
Mrs. Rownak Sultan, Proprietor, Shoe Mart

15:15 – 15:30 Tea Break

(15 min)
15:30 – 17:00 Session 13
(90 min) Experience of Providing DFS in Bangladesh, with a Special Emphasis on
Agent Banking and MFS, OTC, Role of MNO, Women Empowerment

Panel Discussion
Moderator will open the floor providing brief idea about major challenges of
DFS ecosystem in Bangladesh and BB’s plan and expectation in coming years
regarding DFS ecosystem in Bangladesh.
 Representatives from two commercial banks will talk about their bank’s
ideology regarding DFS, use of DFS to increase the financial inclusion,
barriers and challenges in the market and expected regulatory changes
to boost-up the existing DFS market.
 Representative from MFS provider will put light in the major risk and
challenges in MFS market, ways to enhance usage of MFS account in
introducing new product and disbursement of remittance, and how to
take MFS to the next level.
 Representative from the World Bank Group(WBG) will talk about World
Bank’s initiative in building up DFS in Bangladesh, how they are working
in women empowerment through various digital initiatives, expectation
of WBG from DFS to expedite their activities.

Format
Panel Discussion (15 min each), Moderator (15 min), Q & A (15 min)

Facilitators
Moderator: Ms. Lila Rashid, General Manager, BB
Mr. Abul Kashem Md. Shirin, Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer,
Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited.
Mr. Arfan Ali, President and Managing Director, Bank Asia Limited.
Mr. Kamal Quadir, Chief Executive Officer, bKash Limited
Ms. Priyani Malik, Financial Sector Specialist, The World Bank Group Dhaka

8
18:00 – 21:30 Official Dinner, Hosted by BB
(3.30 hrs) (18.00-18.30 Transfer from Hotel to Dinner Venue)
Venue: Palm View Restaurant

(21.00-21.30 Transfer from Dinner Venue to Hotel)

Transportation will be provided by BB
Day 5: Friday, December 8, 2017; The Experience of Different Agencies in DFS

09:00 – 10:00 Session 14

(60 min) Various Models of MFS Agent Management in Bangladesh

Session Summary
Representatives of bKash and Rocket will discuss about following issues:
- Managing MFS Agent in wide geographical range. (What type of Agents can
be appointed, eligibility to become an Agent, Agent supervision
requirements, Agent reporting requirements etc)
- Managing the liquidity. (What are the liquidity requirements for service
providers, Agents/Super Agents (or Agent Network Managers?)
- Putting in place the proper control and compliance mechanism

Format
PowerPoint Presentations (20 min each), Q & A (20 min)

Speakers
Mr. Mizanur Rashid, Chief Commercial Officer, bKash Limited
Mr. Abduhu Sufi, Zonal Head, Chittagong Zone, Rocket Mobile Financial
Services, Dutch Bangla Bank Limited

10:00– 11:00 Session 15

(60 min) Using e-Services to Ensure Easy, Affordable and Reliable Access to Quality
Public Services for all Citizens of Bangladesh.

Session Summary
Various initiatives of Access to Information (a2i) to
-provide digital access to government services.
-encourage thinking out of the box for innovation.
-ensure the best usage of money and time of citizen regarding getting services.

Format
PowerPoint Presentation/Open Discussion (45 min), Q & A (15 min)

Speaker
Dr. Md. Abdul Mannan, Joint Secretary and Director, e-service, Access to
Information (a2i), Prime Minister’s Office

11:00 – 11:30 Tea Break

(30 min)
11:30 – 12:45 Session 16
(75 min) Training Evaluation - AFI
Action Planning - AFI
Concluding Remarks – AFI
Concluding Remarks –Mr. Subhankar Saha, Executive Director, BB
Certificate Distribution and Closing of JLP – Mr. S. M. Moniruzzaman, Deputy
Governor, BB
Vote of Thanks -Mr. Md. Abul Bashar, General Manager, BB

9
12:45 – 14:00 Lunch Break
(75 min)
14:30 - 18:00 Social Visit
(3 hr 30 min)

10