Digital transaction at Dhaka North’s 8 cattle haats

Traders can transact through 17 digital channels at eight temporary cattle haats in the Dhaka North City Corporation to secure their investment and smooth trade of sacrificial animals, said Mayor Atiqul Islam on Monday.

"For digital transactions, 10,000 cattle farmers have already opened bank accounts. In the haats, there will be booths of 10 banks, four Mobile Financial Services (MFS), and three international payment schemes," he said at a press conference on "Smart Bangladesh, Smart Haat" at a city hotel.  

He said "We do not have to go to haat with cash to buy cattle and cattle owners also would not face problems while returning home with money thanks to digital transactions. That means we are gradually moving towards Smart Bangladesh." 

Mentioning that Bangladesh Bank took a pilot programme of opening personal retail accounts in 2022 to introduce digital transactions at cattle haats and financial inclusion of marginal sellers, the mayor said, "In that year, Tk33 crore was transacted digitally. This time we set a target of Tk150 crore transactions."

The 10 banks are AB Bank Limited, Bank Asia Limited, BRAC Bank Limited, Eastern Bank Limited, IFIC Bank PLC, Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited, Mutual Trust Bank Limited, Pubali Bank Limited, The City Bank Limited, and United Commercial Bank Plc. The international payment schemes are Visa, Mastercard, and Amex, while the MFS providers are bKash, Nagad, mCash, and UPAY.

According to the financial service providers, from the digital booths, the banks, and other financial service providers will immediately transfer the money from the buyer's account to the seller's account and will work to reduce the use of cash in transactions. This will also create a digital record of transactions which will help cattle farmers and traders to avail of various services including getting easy loans in the future.

Mayor Atiqul also announced the removal of sacrificial animals' waste within eight hours.

He said "To this end, the leave of all the employees of the city corporation involved in the removal of the waste of sacrifices has been cancelled. We have 11,000 workers for waste removal operations and will distribute 9 lakh biodegradable poly bags for the citizens to keep sacrificial animal waste."
Dhaka North will fix one more haat in two days. Apart from these nine temporary haats and a permanent one in Gabtali, there will be no other haats here. Action will be taken if a haat is set up outside those, the mayor added.