Nagad reaches 4 crore users

Nagad, the digital financial arm of the Bangladesh postal department, has reached the milestone of gaining over four crore users.

The mobile financial service (MFS) provider also crossed the landmark of Tk400 crore in daily transaction value, it said in a press statement on Tuesday.

According to the press statement, Nagad crossed the landmark of one crore users in just 10 months after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the service on 26 March 2019.

It took six months for Nagad to attract the next one crore subscribers and another seven months to raise the number to three crores. The MFS provider added the latest one crore customers in less than two months.

Regarding Nagad's recent achievement, Tanvir A Mishuk, managing director and co-founder of Nagad, said, "We are working with the slogan of 'Everything possible with Nagad' to make all traditional services available on the platform. We are trying to turn the impossible [into] possible every day. It is a time of great joy for us to have reached the milestone of Tk400 crore [in daily] transaction [value] in just two years since inception."

The volume of daily transactions using Nagad has been increasing from the very beginning.

Nagad said daily transactions on the platform crossed Tk100 crore in value for the first time in January last year.

At one of the events at the time, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, information and communication technology adviser to the prime minister, set a target of Tk200 crore in daily transaction volume within the next year.

However, daily transaction volume doubled in December of the same year, surpassing the target set by Joy.

Nagad's daily transactions have increased rapidly in recent months, crossing the Tk300 crore landmark in March this year, and Tk400 crore last week.

Posts and Telecommunications Minister Mustafa Jabbar described the rapid advancement of Nagad as a successful combination of technological innovation and the introduction of customer friendly services.

"I have been watching the progress of Nagad from the beginning. The example Nagad has set in delivering services from the center to the remotest parts of the country over mobile phones is, in fact, one of the best examples of the government's digitalisation process," he said

Anyone can connect to Nagad any time by dialing *167# from any mobile phone, which also facilitates the account opening process.

Nagad claims its fast account-opening system, rolled out in partnership with mobile phone operators, is the first of its kind globally.

Currently, 12,000 merchants use Nagad's payment network on 500 e-commerce platforms. All utility bills, including electricity, water, gas, and broadband internet can be paid using Nagad at no extra cost.