Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission has allowed the mobile network operators to charge the mobile financial service operators each time for accessing mobile operators’ network.
Telcos were given the scope to charge more under a directive of the BTRC issued last week following long demand from the mobile operators.
However, whether the customer or the MFS operators would bear the cost is yet to be settled, officials of BTRC and the MFS operators said.
Under the directive of BTRC, mobile operators were allowed to charge revenue generating MFS Tk 0.85 and non-revenue generating mobile financial transaction Tk 0.4 for each session of unstructured supplementary services data (USSD) of 90 seconds.
Revenue generating session means a session that would allow the MFS operator to generate revenue. While the non-revenue generating session means a session that would not generate any revenue for MFS operator.
Both the session would include 5-4 steps and two SMSs. Any USSD session exceeding 90 seconds would be treated as second session and the mobile phone operator would be allowed to charge for the second session.
The BTRC directive mentioned that the mobile operators would get charge from the MFS operators based on the usage of USSD sessions by the MFS subscribers.
But, the BTRC directive also mentioned that the MNOs would not get any charge for the latters’ technological failure.
It, however, did not mention whether the MFS operator would charge its customers or not.
Asked, Bkash head of corporate communications and public relations Shamsuddin Haider Dalim told New Age that they were aware about the directive but yet in consultation with the telecom regulator and with the stakeholders to finalise that who would bear the cost.
At present, the MFS providers were allowed to charge 1.85 per cent of the transaction amount for over-the-counter transactions, and a Tk 5 service fee for account-to-account transfers.
The MFS providers are delivering the services through the mobile operators’ network and for that they share 7 per cent of the revenue with the carriers.
But in last few years, the mobile operators have been complaining that the MFS providers were delivering different services at free of charge, putting pressure on their network.
Based on the argument, the telcos were urging for session-based charges, prompting the telecom regulator issuing the directive.
On the other hand, MFS operators have been opposing the demand of the mobile phone operators saying that the imposition of session based charging would increase cost for the MFS customers.
If the BTRC’s directive comes into effect, the MFS operators will have to pass on the charge to the customers.
The MFS operators claimed that they were now paying MNOs Tk 0.20 for every successful transaction.
Under the new rules, MNOs will get the USSD charge from the MFS operator.
Source: http://www.newagebd.net/article/75692/btrc-allows-telcos-to-charge-more-for-mobile-banking-service