Nagad Transforms into a Billion Dollar Company in Just 3 Years
Zunaid Ahmed Palak, the State Minister for ICT Division, announced that Nagad, a prominent mobile financial service provider in Bangladesh, has achieved the remarkable feat of becoming a billion dollar company within its first three years of operation.
The state minister shared this impressive news during his inaugural speech as a special guest at the two-day “Smart Bangladesh Summit and Expo” held at the International Convention City Bashundhara. The event was organized by Junior Chamber International (JCI) Bangladesh, as stated in a press release.
Palak expressed his confidence that Bangladesh will witness the emergence of at least five more billion dollar startups, known as unicorns, by 2025. He emphasized that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has laid a solid foundation for talented, courageous, and problem-solving entrepreneurs to lead the world from Bangladesh.
Nagad, an MFS (Mobile Financial Service) provider under the Bangladesh Postal Department, commenced its journey on March 26, 2019. From the very beginning, it disrupted the financial industry by introducing electronic know-your-customer (e-KYC) innovations.
The e-KYC system revolutionized account opening, allowing customers to easily create an MFS account in under a minute by simply taking a photo of their national identity card and a selfie using their smartphone. Nagad further simplified the process by enabling account opening with just a feature phone by dialing *167#. These groundbreaking innovations eliminated the need for cumbersome paperwork.
The success of Nagad’s e-KYC system has had a ripple effect, prompting other MFS operators and financial institutions to adopt this Nagad-inspired innovation, significantly reducing their operational costs.
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Nagad’s achievement reflects its utilization of state-of-the-art technologies, enabling the provision of various services at minimal charges. In some cases, Nagad even offers free services to its customers.
With a strong commitment to transforming Bangladesh into a cashless society, Nagad has a multitude of plans in place for the future.
After four years of operation, Nagad has amassed 75 million registered customers, with daily transactions averaging over Tk1,200 crore. In recognition of its groundbreaking account opening innovation through *167# on a feature phone, the state-owned mobile money carrier was honored with the “WITSA Global ICT Excellence Award-2019” in 2020.
–Source: Dhaka Tribune
