Transactions thru MFS drop for second month

Business Desk :
Transactions through mobile financial services (MFS) dropped for a second month consecutively in August as the festival season started to flatten amid the economic downturn. The volume of transactions declined by Tk 1,723 crore to Tk 87,446 in August compared to Tk 89,169 crore a month earlier.
MFS transactions had reached Tk 94,293 crore in June, when Eid-ul-Adha was celebrated, according to the latest data from Bangladesh Bank.
However, the all-time high was Tk 107,460 crore in April, which was bolstered by the country’s top shopping season of Eid-ul-Fitr. Industry people mainly attributed the decline in July and August to the usual drop in transactions during the following months of a big festival. “MFS transactions usually pick up in the festival season and then drops in subsequent months,” said Zahedul Islam, head of corporate communications and external affairs at Upay.
Shamsuddin Haider Dalim, head of corporate communications at bKash, echoed the same.
“Usually, the amount of transactions increases around various festivals, especially before every Eid, when customers make more purchases,” he said.
As Eid-ul-Adha was celebrated at the beginning of July, transactions in June were much higher than the previous month of May. “After that, the transaction volume returned to normal as before,” Dalim added.
On year-on-year basis, the amount of MFS transactions increased by 18.5 per cent in August. The transactions were made in the form of cash-in, cash-out, person-to-person transfers, merchant payments, government-to-person transfers, salary disbursements, talk-time purchases and utility bill payments using MFS platforms.