Trust gap hinders progress toward cashless Bangladesh
Bangladesh has made great progress in its digital payments, online shopping and e-payment sectors, but trust has become a huge issue. Although there is increasing use of digital finance, online banking, cards and QR payments, many customers have a preference to pay in cash, especially in the online shopping sector.
A report titled "The Role of E-commerce and e-CAB in Building a Cashless Bangladesh" produced by Centre for Strategic and Economic Research, a private research organisation, shows that trust in consumers and businesses, alongside cost-effective payment methods, are key factors to achieving a cashless Bangladesh.
"If we are simply trying to increase the amount of digital transactions that we have, it won’t help us reduce cash dependency if people are not seeing them as a safe, low-cost and reliable option. However, e-commerce and e-CAB can help increase consumer trust and create coordination within the sector," explained Sakif Shamim, Chairman of CSER.
Issue with cash
The report highlights how an online business owner from Kishoreganj selling sarees on Facebook may take an order from a customer from Dhaka, negotiate the price, provide a delivery address and confirm everything through their mobile phone. However, payment will still be made in cash when the courier delivers the product.
"It does not necessarily mean that we are decreasing our cash dependency. In order to create a successful cashless economy, we must create a system that reduces transaction costs and risk alongside providing reliable deliveries, transparent businesses and solutions to any issues," the report says.
Cashless doesn’t mean completely removing cash, but instead creating a financial system where customers will prefer to use digital payments due to them being more convenient, low cost, secure and reliable.
Although we have increasing digital infrastructure in Bangladesh, we still have a large amount of people using the internet. As of the end of June 2026, there are now over 135.9 million internet subscriptions in the country, including 120.8 million mobile internet subscriptions (Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission). However, this does not mean there are 135.9 million unique users as individuals often have multiple SIMs.
Large Growth in Digital Payments
There has been a large increase in mobile financial services, card payments, online banking and QR payments. As of 2024, there were 17.37 trillion transactions made through MFS, up by 28.42% compared to 2023 where there were 13.52 trillion transactions. On average there were 48.33 billion transactions made daily.
Card payments have increased from 27 million in September 2021 to 52.9 million in August 2026. Monthly card payments have increased to 497.7 billion from 245.61 billion.
Internet banking has increased from 462.43 billion monthly transactions in July 2023 to 1.589 trillion in April 2026. Card payments used for e-commerce have also increased.
Bangla QR has also been an important initiative. As of July 1st 2026, Bangla QR became mandatory for all banks and MFS providers. This allows customers to pay merchants using one QR code with different apps from banking and financial institutions.
According to Bangladesh Bank, there are currently 3.9 million merchant points offering the service. This has increased the number of daily transactions to 350,000 from 100,000. The value of transactions has also increased to 1.4354 billion from over 280 million.
However, there are issues with interpreting this data. Many of these figures do not indicate we are reducing cash dependency. Many of the transactions made through MFS do not indicate we are purchasing goods and services, such as deposits and withdrawals. There are also multiple accounts for individuals making it hard to know how many real users there are.
Cash on Delivery Indicates Lack of Trust
Despite increasing digital payments, many customers still prefer to pay on delivery when shopping online. Many estimates show that over 90% of e-commerce users prefer to pay on delivery (Report). Another industry source shows that 75% of customers pay on delivery.
This shouldn’t be seen as customers not wanting to adopt new technology or old habits, but instead due to concerns over fraud, quality of the product, delivery issues and refunds.
With many online platforms failing, such as Evaly, customers are worried about making payments upfront. Customers who are worried about losing money will want to pay on delivery.
However, this increases costs for sellers. They will have to collect cash from couriers, delays in payment, returns and the risk of carrying cash. This can be difficult for small entrepreneurs due to limited working capital.
According to Daraz, 95% of sellers on their platform are small and medium sized entrepreneurs. This could help small businesses with quicker and more reliable payments.
e-CAB Should Help Build Trust
e-CAB is an important institution to help build trust within the e-commerce sector. It was set up in 2014 and helps businesses to have a voice, engage with policy makers and create coordination within the industry.
To help, e-CAB should create realistic standards for businesses to follow. This includes ensuring businesses have verified identities, clear product descriptions, clear cancellation and refund policies and a time frame for dealing with customer complaints. This will need to be monitored regularly to ensure businesses are held accountable.
They should also work together with banks, MFS providers and e-commerce to increase access to Bangla QR codes, payment links and transaction logs. This can help entrepreneurs using Facebook.
This could help small businesses with low payment costs, better book keeping and creating a history of transactions.
Shamim has also highlighted the pressure on small entrepreneurs. e-CAB have expressed concerns about an increase in value added tax on commission charges from 5% to 15%. There are also concerns with international e-commerce rules. CSER argue that regulations should protect public funds, however not put too much pressure on smaller businesses and encourage people to use digital payments.
Encourage Digital Payments
Offering reasonable discounts or free delivery for pre-paid items can help encourage digital payments. However, this shouldn’t put too much pressure on small sellers.
Having a third party hold customers’ payments until their delivery requirements are met will help reduce fraud. This will also assure sellers they will get paid once the conditions have been met.
There should be clear processes for dealing with complaints. This should include failed transactions, payments going to the wrong account, items not being delivered and suspected fraud. Better coordination with e-commerce platforms and Bangladesh Banks current complaint handling could help.
Improving digital and financial literacy will be important. Customers and merchants should be aware of fake websites, suspicious links, protecting personal information and secure payments.
CSER also recommend having regular standardised data on the size of the e-commerce market, amount of orders, payment methods, return rates and refund times. This will help policy makers, investors and businesses understand how well the market is doing.
There are many estimates of how big the e-commerce market is in Bangladesh. One estimate by e-CAB shows the market will reach $7.5 billion in 2024 and forecasts growth to $9.8 billion by 2028. An older estimate by the Centre for Policy Dialogue showed the market would be worth $10.5 billion by 2026. This shows there needs to be consistent data within the industry.
Trust Will Determine Success of Cashless Bangladesh
The government are also looking into creating a digital ID and wallet for every citizen. Prime Ministers Adviser on Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology Rehan Asif Asad has said in a recent event that the system will help increase digital payments by integrating them with public services and the financial system. The system will be simple, private, secure, inclusive and interoperable.
Bangladesh Bank Governor Md Mostakur Rahman in programme has also highlighted there are efforts to increase Bangla QR payments. Transaction fees have been reduced to zero between participating institutions from October 1. Person to person payments with Bangla QR are planned for November. This will allow individuals from different professions to receive payments through their own QR code.
Average daily value of Bangla QR transactions has increased from 370 million in the first week of June to around 1.8 billion in the last week of September. To reach an effective scale, there will need to be around 30 billion daily transactions.
Ultimately, Bangladesh are no longer struggling with digital infrastructure but ensuring customers receive what they have paid for, sellers receive money quickly, transaction costs are kept to a minimum and complaints are dealt with.
Bangladesh will not become cashless simply through technology. Instead, we need to create experiences that will show consumers and businesses that digital payments are much easier and trustworthy. E-commerce will be a vital sector to help achieve this. e-CAB have an opportunity to create standards within the industry, protect customers and create coordination.