Data Modeling
Mathematical and Computational Data Modeling | Online ISSN 3143-9217
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Volume 5 Number 1 2024
RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)
Interoperability in Mobile Financial Services: Regulatory Challenges and Prospects in Bangladesh
Mohammad Reza Rezaee 1*, Kamruzzaman Mithu 2*
Data Modeling 5 (1) 1-8 https://doi.org/10.25163/data.5110936
Submitted: 21 September 2024 Revised: 13 November 2024 Accepted: 24 November 2024 Published: 26 November 2024
Abstract
Background: Mobile financial services (MFS) have grown into one of the principal channels of digital and financial inclusion in Bangladesh, yet the sector's regulatory architecture — spread across a sector regulator, several co-regulators, and competing commercial interests — has struggled to keep pace with the platform's rapid expansion, leaving interoperability across providers only partially realized. Methods: This study adopts a qualitative, secondary-source content-analysis design, drawing on Bangladesh Bank's regulatory instruments (orders, guidelines, and circulars issued between 1972 and 2022), relevant national legislation, an institutional working paper on digital-finance interoperability, and contemporaneous business-press reporting, in order to map the regulatory actor landscape and characterize the sector's interoperability challenges and prospects. Results: The regulatory arrangement for MFS in Bangladesh involves a sector-specific regulator (Bangladesh Bank), elected political oversight bodies, three co-regulators spanning telecommunications, consumer protection, and competition, and three organized interest groups representing telecom operators, banks, and consumers. Recent regulatory action — including the 2022 MFS Regulations, revised transaction ceilings, and the launch of the Interoperable Digital Transaction Platform (IDTP) — has begun to establish cross-platform fund transfer, though full interoperability, a level competitive playing field, and consistently high service quality remain incompletely achieved, with market concentration around a single dominant operator persisting. Conclusion: Bangladesh's MFS sector stands at a genuine inflection point: the regulatory and technical groundwork for interoperability is now largely in place, but converting that groundwork into affordable, high-quality, and genuinely competitive services will require sustained coordination among regulators, tighter fraud enforcement, and a deliberate reduction in transaction costs for lower-income users.
Keywords: Mobile financial services; Interoperability; Financial inclusion; Bangladesh Bank; Regulatory governance; Digital payments; Fintech policy.
References
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