Asia-Pacific · GDP rank #36
Bangladesh
BD · BDT @ 0.0082/USD
Bangladesh runs the world's third-largest mobile-money market by user count, anchored by bKash (75m registered users, ~63% of MFS market share), Nagad (~95m, fast catching up on state-payments distribution) and Rocket. Mobile Financial Services account for the bulk of retail digital payments; cards are a smaller, urban-skewed channel. Bangladesh Bank launched the interoperable Binimoy platform in November 2022 to unify wallet-to-bank-to-wallet rails; volumes scaled materially in 2024–25 as RMG (ready-made-garments) payroll moved decisively onto digital wallets. The 2024 taka unification under the IMF ECF programme reset the FX line and pulled remittance flows back through formal channels.
Tab 03
Rails & infrastructure
The instant rail, the RTGS spine, the card switch, the direct-debit scheme, and the country's CBDC stance. Each rail is reported with operator, launch year, and 2024 flow so the relative scale across rails is readable at a glance.
CBDC status is deliberately granular: live, pilot, preparation, live stalled, and sceptical, no pilot are different things.
Bangladesh Bank has flagged CBDC research within its medium-term payment-systems strategy but has not committed to a pilot. Public framing emphasises that the Binimoy interoperability layer and the MFS rails already cover the retail-payments objectives a CBDC would address. The framing fits the SCHEMA-v3 'research' designation rather than 'pilot'.
Instant payments
Binimoy (Interoperable Digital Transaction Platform)
The instant leg typically carries the vast majority of retail consumer flow in modern payment systems — and sits in direct tension with card networks and wallets for the same transactions.
- Operator
- Bangladesh Bank
- Live since
- 2022-11-13
Transactions · 2024
transactions/year · FY2024-25
Volume scaled materially through 2025 after BB-PSPs-banks commercial-terms compromise.
Cleared value · 2024
BDT/year · FY2024-25
Participating institutions
institutions · Q1 2026
Includes scheduled banks, MFS operators (bKash, Nagad, Rocket, Upay, TAP) and PSPs. Roll-out continued through 2025–26.
Alias registrations
IDs · 2025
Rail features
- ▌Real-time A2A, wallet-to-bank, bank-to-wallet and wallet-to-wallet clearing 24/7
- ▌Per-transaction cap BDT 50,000 (under review for upward revision in 2026)
- ▌Unified ID schema across mobile, NID and virtual address
- ▌ISO 20022 messaging from launch
- ▌Free for end-users in current consumer tier
RTGS
Real-time gross settlement
The RTGS spine clears high-value interbank flow — including the settlement of the instant-rail cycles and card-network net positions. Transaction count is modest; cleared value is enormous.
Transactions · 2024
transactions/year · FY2024-25
Cleared value · 2024
BDT/year · FY2024-25
Open banking
Regulatory and technical posture
- Regime
- Bangladesh Bank Open API Framework (in early rollout)
- Live Since
- 2024-09-01
Licensed Open API participants
institutions · Q1 2026
Full reference
Kpis
BACPS cheque clearing transactions
transactions/year · FY2024-25— Cheque volume continues to decline as MFS and RTGS absorb the corporate disbursement workflow.
BEFTN (ACH) transactions
transactions/year · FY2024-25