Huawei, bKash Sign MoU to Strengthen Partnership and Improve Financial Inclusion in Bangladesh

Six years ago, Huawei and bKash started a partnership. Six years later, that partnership has only grown tremendously. And now, they are driving this fruitful collaboration forward.

Huawei, a leading global technology solutions provider, recently reaffirmed its commitment to bKash, the leader in mobile payments and financial services in Bangladesh, through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that will plot the way towards financial inclusion for the Bangladeshi people.

Pan Junfeng, President, Huawei South Asia Region and CEO at Huawei Bangladesh, and Kamal Quadir, Founder of and CEO at bKash, led the signing of the MoU last week, which was called “Smart Fintech: Inclusive. Innovative. Inspiring Bangladesh.” Also gracing the ceremony were Susan Vize, Officer-in-Charge at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Dhaka Office, and Sarder M. Asaduzzaman, Assistant Resident Representative and Head of Programme Management and Partnership Unit at the United Nations Development Programme.

Extending Six Years of Innovative Collaboration

Huawei and bKash have been partners for six years now, providing technical support, innovative solutions and strategic assistance to Bangladesh’s foremost movers in the financial technology (fintech) industry in every aspect. And it is a partnership that Huawei values a lot and aims to cultivate even more in the years ahead.

“It is a matter of our pride that Huawei is a significant part of this inspiring journey of bKash,” noted Pan in his opening keynote. “Huawei has been providing technical support and strategical assistance in every way possible while offering solutions like Mobile Money FinTech Solution. And we, both parties, cherish that bKash is trusted by millions of customers as a safe platform for transacting money.”

Pan, also in his keynote, emphasised bKash’s standing as the foremost financial services provider in Bangladesh with its 35 bank partners, 260,000 merchants, 284 customer care points, 258 distributors and 67 million customers. This reach, according to Pan, is proof that “bKash’s contribution to the digital transformation in Bangladesh is immense,” and Huawei plans on helping the Bangladeshi fintech expand that contribution even more moving forward.

“When we talk about mobile financial service in Bangladesh, ‘bKash’ is the name that comes first in our mind,” said Pan. “It is a shining example of empowering people and increasing financial inclusion, [such that] ‘bKash’ has turned into a term for sending money to others.”

“We nurture a great ambition for the development of the financial industry. In the future, 5G, AI and cloud computing will impact the financial industry on a huge scale. Huawei has invested heavily in these technologies for many years and has become a global leader in related fields,” Pan explained. “To further drive the digital transformation of the financial industry, we will provide customers with superior options based on our open technical architecture, ongoing research and development (R&D) investment and proactive cooperation model, as well as the successful transformation practices of Huawei and global leading financial institutions.”

Huawei and bKash: Driving Bangladesh Forward

bKash’s Quadir also spoke at the ceremony, and he highlighted the vital role Huawei is playing in this partnership, not only in driving bKash forward as Bangladesh’s primordial fintech solution, but also in helping spur encompassing financial inclusion throughout Bangladesh.

“Financial inclusion and inclusive services have been part of bKash’s DNA since its inception in 2011. At the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, we are working tirelessly towards a digital financial ecosystem and becoming a Smart Nation,” Quadir pointed out. ”The joint effort of bKash and Huawei aims at driving financial inclusion and eliminating poverty for SDGs with innovative solutions.”

bKash has been working towards that ambitious goal for more than a decade now, and it has made significant inroads along the way. Utilising Bangladesh’s ubiquitous mobile network coverage, bKash has built a unique nationwide agent network to ensure the timely and reliable delivery of transformative services—all using even the most basic mobile phones. The app now has more than 67 million verified users who can access a comprehensive menu of transaction options, including sending money and paying bills.

With bKash and its robust network of nearly 300,000 agents and 300,000 merchants across Bangladesh, the Bangladeshi people are able to access a range of mobile financial services, from the simplest to the most innovative functions such as education fees payment, payroll, savings and nano loans. bKash has also integrated with banks, financial institutions and service providers to strengthen the cashless digital financial ecosystem of the country and strengthen its position as the fintech provider of choice in Bangladesh.

Together, Huawei and bKash are working to achieve an even bigger goal: to help the United Nations achieve its Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in Bangladesh. This is a key point of the Huawei-bKash partnership that Sarder M. Asaduzzaman, Assistant Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme, touched on during his own keynote at the ceremony.

“This initiative—smart fintech bringing [forth] an inclusive, innovative, and inspiring Bangladesh—carries heavy weight and insights. I believe both Huawei and bKash can agree and are working on that. And their further partnership will reinforce the whole initiative,” Asaduzzaman noted.

Susan Vize, Officer-in-Charge of the UNESCO Dhaka Office, agreed, saying: “SDG is the end goal, it is where we want to be in the 2030s. We are on the path, and this Smart Fintech partnership is the vehicle that will drive us to get there.”

Huawei’s Mobile Money Fintech Solution to Drive bKash Further Forward

Huawei is the top supplier of MFS/DFS solutions across the world, offering a fully virtualised and cloud-native implementation of Mobile wallet core.

In fact, Huawei’s platform supports several players in the global MFS market, with the company’s fintech solutions now providing access to digital financial services to over 400 million people globally, including bKash’s over 67 million customers as one of the users of Huawei FinTech Wallet. This fintech solution allows bKash customers to make monetary transactions, purchases and payments digitally—and do them conveniently, seamlessly and safely.

But Huawei is not done innovating in the fintech space. With total R&D spending reaching CNY 161.5 billion—or 25.1% of Huawei’s total revenue—in 2022, the company has now invested CNY 977.3 billion in research, putting it fourth in the 2022 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard. This willingness to spend as much as one-fourth of the company’s revenue only highlights Huawei’s commitment to innovation, and it will continue to do so in the years to come with its 114,000 employees in R&D.

Highlighting this commitment, even more, are the over 120,000 active patents Huawei has filed as of 2022. The company, in fact, was by far the most prolific patent filer in 2022, submitting over 7,600 patents to cement its status as the industry leader in multiple mainstream fields, including mobile communications, short-distance communications and video codecs. In other words, Huawei is continuing to develop and offer new, more innovative solutions in various verticals, including fintech.

“We need to bring Smart FinTech services with innovative solutions and services so that it can inspire more people to utilise it in their need and can bring better value to the society,” Pan concluded. “That will be achieved only with a collaborative effort. This agreement will extend joint efforts in ensuring digital and financial inclusion and promoting employment. And most importantly, Huawei will support bKash with its best technologies, which will help this MFS provider reach more customers with superior services.” 

Enabling Financial Inclusion via bKash and Huawei

Financial inclusion, of course, is one of the ultimate goals of bKash, and it has been working tirelessly towards that goal. As the country’s leading mobile financial service provider, bKash has, according to a study by the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, boosted the income of Bangladeshi households, empowered women and reduced the impact of risks during times of uncertainty.

With Huawei’s help, bKash will be able to reinforce its primordial status as the fintech of choice of the Bangladeshi people and help the country become financially inclusive. To this end, expect bKash to use Huawei’s solutions to further innovate the financial space of Bangladesh, augment its existing features—like receiving remittances from third parties and completing commercial transactions with merchants—and add new ones.

It is a smart approach to financial inclusivity by bKash, and Huawei will make it possible with its Mobile Money Fintech Solution.