The Bangladesh Bank has provided a licence to the ABG Technologies Limited, a concern of the country’s conglomerate Bashundhara Group, to operate as a Payment Service Provider (PSP).

The newly licensed company will operate an e-wallet named ‘Pocket’, the Payment Systems Department of the central bank issued a circular in this regard on Thursday.

The circular stated that according to the Bangladesh order 1972 and Bangladesh Payment and Settlement Systems Regulations-2014, the Bangladesh Bank issued the licence to ABG Technologies.

Sources said the company proposed Bashundhara Group Managing Director Sayem Sobhan Anvir as the managing director of the new venture.

Currently, there are six licenced PSP in the market — iPay System Ltd, D Money Bangladesh Ltd, Recursion FinTech Ltd, Green and Red Technologies Ltd, Progoti System Ltd and Digital Payments Ltd.

Digital Payments Ltd, a concern of Pathao, a tech-based start-up that offers courier, e-commerce, ridesharing, and food delivery services, obtained the PSP licence from the central bank in April this year.

Industry insiders said most of the licensed PSPs are not doing well due to various reasons including lack of awareness among the consumers about the benefits of e-wallet.

Previously, many companies were providing e-wallet services without any BB licence which prompted the banking regulator to instruct banks not to provide any services to the unlicensed PSPs and PSOs on March 5 of 2020. A senior official of the central bank said as per the regulation, about Tk 20 crore will have to be kept as paid-up capital to establish a PSP.