In 2011 when mobile financial service (MFS) was introduced in Bangladesh, 27 banks took the approval from the central bank as many had correctly predicted an impending boom in mobile banking amid rising usage of cell phones.
During his childhood, Md Mujbur Rahman would see his mother waiting for days to receive money sent by his father through the post office from Adamjee Jute Mills, the then biggest operational jute mill in the world.
The wait for the postmaster to inform about the receipt of the money sometimes took up to a month.
Today, 51-year-old Rahman, the only breadwinner of his five-member family, sends money in seconds via mobile banking channels to his spouse living more than 285 km away south of Dhaka.
Over there in Betagi, a remote sub-district in Barguna, his spouse Nipu Begum gets a message of the receipt of the money in her phone. Withdrawal of the money, popularly known as cash-out, is some hundred yards walking distance for Begum and her children.