Bangladesh's most widely-used Mobile Financial Service bKash has quietly turned its dominance into a high-cost ecosystem for ordinary users as Bangladesh Bank (BB) openly admits it does not regulate service prices, according to senior central bank officials and recent data.
Users complain that the BB's permissive approach has essentially given bKash a legal immunity to charge high fees without fear of regulatory pushback. Without assertive price control, the BB's current path appears to be subsidizing bKash's profit at the expense of consumers
While regulators promote digital finance, the lack of strict price control has allowed bKash to charge customers fees that far exceed bank costs and regional norms, placing an undue burden on low-income citizens and raising serious questions about oversight and consumer protection.
The BB officials acknowledge that there is no fixed cap enforced on Mobile Financial Service (MFS) charges, and that providers like bKash are free to set their own rates as long as they disclose them to customers.
A senior official in the Payment Systems Department said, "We monitor for irregularities, but there is no fixed cap on what providers can charge. We have no plan at this moment to go for market capping of MFSs. It's a free economy, and the market accepted the high charges of bKash. Those who can't afford it can use other MFS providers."
This admission exposes a lax regulatory stance that treats everyday financial access as a market commodity rather than a service requiring consumer protection.
The consequences of this lax monitoring are evident. A recent Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) study shows that in 2024, customers paid an estimated Tk44.10 billion to Tk102 billion in cash-out fees on transactions worth Tk5.5 trillion, while commercial banks collected only Tk6.39 billion for similar services.
That means common people are paying many times more to withdraw their own money through bKash than bank customers pay for basic banking transactions.
For many Bangladeshis, these charges are not trivial. A cash-out fee of Tk18.50 per Tk 1,000 - the highest tier in bKash's schedule - effectively skims nearly 2 per cent of a user's funds for every withdrawal.
By contrast, the new BB-led interoperable transfer rules under the National signs Payment Switch Bangladesh (NPSB) place maximum fees for bank-to-MFS moves at Tk1.50 per Tk 1,000 and MFS-to-bank or MFS-to-MFS transfers at Tk 8.50 per Tk 1,000, highlighting how current market prices are set outside effective regulation.
Users complain that the BB's permissive approach has essentially given bKash a legal immunity to charge high fees without fear of regulatory pushback. "There is no price control, so service providers are free to impose or raise charges," said a financial inclusion expert, urging that disclosure alone is insufficient for consumer protection. Experts argue that a comprehensive legal framework with enforceable fee caps is necessary to curb exploitative pricing and ensure fairness across the sector.
The BB's focus has instead been on expanding interoperability and transaction limits, with recent moves to allow seamless transfers between bank accounts and MFS wallets and to raise MFS transaction thresholds ahead of national holidays. These initiatives aim to deepen digital finance but do nothing to address the fundamental issue of high customer costs.
A bKash spokesperson defended the company's pricing, saying higher fees cover operational costs, agent commissions and infrastructure and that the market remains competitive. However, critics describe this defense as self-serving rhetoric masking a serious gap in regulation that leaves millions of Bangladeshis paying some of the highest mobile finance charges in South Asia.
The policy question now confronting regulators is stark Should digital financial inclusion mean more choices or cheaper access
Without assertive price control, the BB's current path appears to be subsidizing bKash's profit at the expense of consumers - a stance that if unchanged, may cement systemic inequality in the heart of the nation's digital economy.
