In Bangladesh, Mobile Financial Services (MFS) have transformed the financial landscape by providing access to the financial services to underserved and unbanked populations. The primary players in the market include bKash, Rocket, and Nagad, each offering similar services with slight variations in pricing. The cost of using MFS typically involves fees for sending money, cash-out, and other transactions. For cash-out, the highest fee is generally around 1.85% of the withdrawn amount. Sending money to a personal account is often free within the same network but incurs a small fee, usually 0.5% to 2%, when transferring across networks. Pricing structures also vary between providers based on factors like transaction amounts and customer type (favorite or not).
Despite the convenience of MFS, transaction fees—particularly for cash-outs—are considered high, especially for low-income users in the rural areas. Our survey reveals that 90.9% of the bKash customers, 67.9% of the Nagad customers and 50% the Rocket customers think that cash-out charges are high or very high. Given that many MFS users belong to economically disadvantaged groups and the size of their sending money amount is small (about Tk. 2000), the cost of accessing MFS has been considered a burden for many of them.