Mastercard Bangladesh office recently celebrated the completion of its third year in the country. This also coincided with their celebration of 20 years of Mastercard cards being present in the country, having introduced the first branded plastic card in Bangladesh in 1997.
Mastercard is the first technology company in the global payments industry to start a dedicated country office in Bangladesh back in 2013. In the span of these three years, the company has forged significant partnerships with 16 leading financial and commercial 
institutions – AB Bank, Bank Asia, Al-Arafah Islami Bank Ltd, Brac Bank, Dutch Bangla Bank, Eastern Bank Limited, Mutual Trust Bank Limited, National Bank Limited, Premier Bank, Prime Bank, Pubali Bank, Southeast Bank Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank, The City Bank, United Commercial Bank (UCB) and Lanka Bangla Finance.
Leveraging the company’s global expertise in technology and global payments, Mastercard has come up with innovation in financial inclusion in Bangladesh, to bring the unbanked under the ambit of formal banking. Mastercard also introduced a three-phase grants program in collaboration with Buro Bangladesh.
While speaking on the occasion, Mr. Syed Mohammad Kamal, Country Manager, Mastercard Bangladesh said “Mastercard established its country office in Bangladesh at a time when no other technology company in the global payments space had a dedicated office here. We had big plans and were serious about our purpose of enabling a cashless economy. It has been three years since then and we have measured up to our commitment of achieving what we set out to do. We look forward to fostering a cashless economy in the country with the twin purpose of furthering financial inclusion and promoting safety and security of payments.”
- Ø Earlier this year, in April, Mastercard in partnership with Western Union, Brac Bank and bKash launched the Pull Remittance Service, simplifying the process of remitting to Bangladesh for migrant workers around the world.
- Ø In 2014, Mastercard introduced the first of its kind Spend and Win campaign in the country called Char Chakka Hoi Hoi for Mastercard cardholders, to encourage the use of plastic cards during the country’s busiest shopping season.
- Ø The company also used its infrastructure to facilitate the Mastercard Payment Gateway Service with Eastern Bank Limited – the banks first-in-market commercial payment solution powered by Mastercard.
Present at the celebrations were Syed Mohammad Kamal, Country Manager, Mastercard Bangladesh and Gitanka D Datta, Vice President, Mastercard Bangladesh, among various other top personnel of the company.
