Next dream is to make a cashless society: Joy

Prime Minister’s ICT Affairs Adviser Sajeeb Wazed Joy on Tuesday said that the next step of digital Bangladesh is building a cashless society to ensure transparency, accountability and mobility in financial transactions.

“The next dream of digital Bangladesh is to make a cashless society. The blaze service is a part of the cashless society,” he said while inaugurating the blaze service as the chief guest at a virtual function.

State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak and Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor Jamal Ahmed joined the function as special guests while Chairman of the Sonali Bank Board of Directors Ziaul Hasan Siddiqui gave the concluding remarks.

CEO and Managing Director of the Sonali Bank Limited Md. Ataur Rahman Prodhan delivered the welcome speech.

The blaze service, a joint initiative of Sonali Bank, Homepay and ITCL, will reduce the tendency of sending money through ‘hundi’ and will increase further the country’s foreign exchange reserves, official sources said.

Through the service, the hard earned money of expatriates from any part of the world will be able to send easily and safely within just five seconds in any time to the country through the blaze service. Sonali Bank Limited is the first in the banking sector of Bangladesh to introduce such activities. As a result, expatriates will be able to send their money easily and the beneficiaries will be able to withdraw the
money from their own banks quickly, the sources added .

In his speech, Joy said under the strong leadership and direction of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh has achieved significant
success in the development of IT sector in the last 12 years as part of building a “Digital Bangladesh”.

Information technology has changed the way of people’s living and the economy around the world and the current situation caused by the COVID-19 epidemic has multiplied the need and importance of information technology, he added.

He informed that Bangladesh’s economy has not faced impact of Covid-19 as the country adopted the digitization long ago.