Bangladesh Bank is introducing financial incentives to accelerate Bangla QR transactions after initial uptake remained limited despite the payment system becoming mandatory for merchants.
The central bank will directly reward banks and payment providers for small-value transactions while eliminating interchange fees on all Bangla QR payments.
Customers will not receive the incentive directly. Instead, Bangladesh Bank expects the financial support for banks and payment providers to encourage wider adoption among small merchants, making digital payments more accessible to consumers.
From 1 October, eligible Bangla QR transactions of up to Tk2,000 at small and marginal merchants and service providers will qualify for incentives equivalent to 0.30% of the transaction value.
Of this, the bank or mobile financial service provider whose app a customer uses to make the payment, known as the issuing institution, will receive a 0.20% incentive. The bank or payment provider whose Bangla QR is used by the merchant to receive the payment, known as the acquiring institution, will receive 0.10%.
Bangladesh Bank will pay the incentives to participating institutions monthly.
At the same time, the central bank will reduce the Interchange Reimbursement Fee (IRF) to zero for all Bangla QR transactions from 1 October. As a result, issuing institutions will no longer receive an interchange fee or service charge from acquiring institutions for processing Bangla QR payments.
Bangladesh Bank’s Payment Systems Department announced the measures through two separate circulars issued on Monday.
The measures come as Bangla QR transactions remain a tiny fraction of Bangladesh’s overall digital payments market, despite the system becoming mandatory for merchants.
Bangladesh Bank made Bangla QR mandatory from 1 July as part of its drive to reduce dependence on cash and expand cashless payments. However, adoption has so far been slow amid the costs associated with such transactions.
The central bank said the latest measures are intended to simplify merchant payments, bring small and marginal sellers and service providers into the digital payments network and develop a secure, cost-effective and interoperable digital payment ecosystem.
Bangladesh Bank has also imposed safeguards to prevent institutions from manipulating transactions to claim incentives.
A single large payment cannot be deliberately split into several smaller transactions to bring each within the Tk2,000 threshold and qualify for incentives.
Acquiring institutions will also be required to monitor, verify and review merchants showing unusually high numbers or unusual patterns of transactions. They will be responsible for preventing transaction splitting, cash-outs through Bangla QR and other forms of abuse.
Bangla QR is a unified and interoperable payment system that eliminates the need for merchants to display separate QR codes for different banks and mobile financial service providers. Customers can scan a single Bangla QR and pay the merchant directly through any participating bank or MFS app.
