Palak: Digital financial inclusion key to building digital Bangladesh
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State Minister for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Zunaid Ahmed Palak has said promoting digital financial inclusion is the core pillar of building a digital Bangladesh.
"The government is investing efforts and resources to nurture innovation in this domain," he said.
The state minister said this while addressing as chief guest an event titled ‘Driving Digital Finance Innovations for Meeting Enterprise Needs’ at Six Seasons Hotel in capital on Monday.
The program was organized by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).
Palak said A2i and UNCDF were jointly working on launching a digital financial services innovation lab.
"I am sure the initiative will contribute to institutionalize support for local emerging start-ups and financial technology initiatives," he said.
The industry would add around three lakh jobs in the market within next couple of years, Palak said.
The minister also highlighted that the government was heavily investing on the digitization process to make the citizen service easier and generate job employment in the coming days.
Chairman of Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation (BSCIC) Md Mostaque Hassan, First Secretary of Canadian High Commission in Bangladesh Trina Oviedo, team leader of the delegation of European Union to Bangladesh Manfred Fernholz and Investment Advisor of Startup Bangladesh at ICT Division Tania F Jabeen, among others, were also present the event.
In her speech, Trina Oveido said: "New digital technology and the fin-tech innovations, with the support of UNCDF, has the potentials to grow and that is why Canada supports it."
The speakers emphasized that the target groups of these interventions-women customers and women-led enterprises were crucial for speeding up the country's economic growth and reducing gender gap in accessing financial services.
The interventions for promoting digital innovation in the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) retail supply chain targeting retail micro-merchants are also crucial to drive growth and employment opportunities, particularly in the rural level.
Around 1.3 million retail micro-merchants are the core part of our retail trade sector, transforming them as a last-mile digital payment and service access points will significantly contribute to building a stronger ecosystem for digital financial services, e-commerce and other digital services promoted by the government.
Source: https://www.dhakatribune.com