Mastercard announces rewards on transactions during Ramadan, Eid

Mastercard has announced various rewards for customers who will make transactions using its services from April to the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr.

In order to be eligible for the rewards, Mastercard's customers have to make at least four transactions from 1 April to 15 May this year and those with the highest numbers of transactions will get the rewards.

The first prize will be a foreign trip. There will be different types of gift vouchers as other prizes.

 "To avail this offer, you have to make a transaction of at least Tk1,000 in the country or $25 to a foreign country. A customer will get two points for each transaction.

"The one who will get the highest points by making the highest number of transactions will get the first prize," said Syed Kamal, country manager of Mastercard, while disclosing their new campaign at an online briefing on Wednesday morning.

Officials of Mastercard and those from different partnering banks of the company also joined the briefing.

Like every year, Mastercard has come up with offers for its customers ahead of Ramadan and Eid this year, said Kamal, adding, "No one related with Mastercard nor its partnering banks will be eligible for this award. This will only apply to general transactions. Commercial transactions will be outside the scope of this campaign."

According to officials, prizes will be handed over to the winners within one month after the end of the campaign on 15 May. Mastercard has been running such a campaign since 2014. The campaign is usually launched during the two seasons of Eid and winter.

Sayed Kamal expressed his hope that with the pandemic situation in mind, customers will transact more with cards this year than ever before and this campaign will play a pivotal role in creating a cashless society.

Asif Hasan, head of card of AB Bank, said that as the e-commerce platform is getting stronger amid the pandemic, Mastercard may add some new offers.

Referring to the timely campaign, Dhaka Bank's Head of Retail Business Mustafizur Rahman said, "This opportunity will increase the number of Mastercard customers."

However, Khorshed Alam, head of retail, Lanka-Bangla Finance and Anwar Farooq Talukder, head of e-Banking, Dutch-Bangla Bank have suggested reducing the transaction fee on Mastercard.

They said the operating costs of credit cards are much higher. If the existing fee can be reduced, the interest of the customers in the transaction will increase which will eventually boost the business of Mastercard.