Dhaka Bank, TSLC Alliance sign agreement to drive financial inclusion in Bangladesh

Dhaka Bank Limited and CASHe Alliance Limited (TSLC Alliance), a joint venture company between Bangladesh and Singapore, have recently signed a partnership agreement to bring TSLC Alliances' financial wellness platform to Bangladesh and deliver financial access to underserved digital natives in the country.

Emranul Huq, managing director & CEO, Dhaka Bank Ltd and Deepak Saluja, managing director of CASHe Alliance Ltd signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations, reads a press release. 

The transformational partnership will allow TSLC Alliance to launch its industry-leading neo banking platform in Bangladesh with Dhaka Bank to deliver affordable, accessible and differentiated financial solutions to the underserved digital natives, which will be new phenomena in the consumer credit market of Bangladesh and drive the inclusion of credit-thin, new to credit and credit invisible everyday consumers. 

Through the partnership, TSLC Alliance is looking to launch its unrivalled and progressive mobile-first credit-led risk scoring platform, powered by Artificial Intelligence and machine learning, in Bangladesh in the first half of 2022.

Once launched, the global financial wellness platform will engender affordable, hyper-personalised and enabling instantaneous credit to underserved middle-income consumers in the country through Dhaka Bank. 

Managing Director of Dhaka Bank, Emranul Huq, said: "While availing loans in this process, clients will not be required to provide any document physically by visiting any branch of the bank, instead, they will need to submit the required information and documents through app which Dhaka Bank will examine using an AI-based assessment engine to fast track the process of lending."

He also said the bank will initiate loan disbursement on a pilot basis using this AI-based platform which will run until May. "We have initially decided to select the payroll accounts maintained with Dhaka Bank to be eligible for the loans. The entire process from sanction to disbursement will be end-to-end digital and will be completed in two hours."

Clients will need to download a mobile application dedicated for this process and submit NID information along with a photo taken through the app.

Deepak Saluja, co-founder, group CEO of TSLC, and managing director, CASHe Alliance Limited said: "I am extremely pleased that we have the opportunity, to collaborate with a top tier institution like Dhaka Bank to bring our financial wellness platform to Bangladesh. We share a common mission; to bring underserved, everyday consumers into mainstream banking. We have an established track record of growth and execution in India, where we have some 8 million digital natives on our platform. We are seeing the positive impact we are making; lowering the barriers to borrowing while helping drive economic growth and providing everyday people with financial freedom. We look forward to replicating this in Bangladesh and making a positive change here." 

Also present were Jowher Rizvi, chairman of Alliance Holdings Limited, Mohammad Abu Jafar, additional managing director, Dhaka Bank Limited, AKM Shahnawaj, deputy managing director (RM), Dhaka Bank Limited, AMM Moyen Uddin, deputy managing director (Ops), Dhaka Bank Limited, Md Mostaque Ahmed, deputy managing director & chief emerging market officer, Dhaka Bank Limited, Akhlaqur Rahman, SEVP & head of Corporate Banking Division, Dhaka Bank Limited, Israr Khosru Chowdhury, chief executive officer, CASHe Alliance Ltd, Kazi Nasim Ahmed, chief operating officer, CASHe Alliance Ltd, and other senior officials of both the organisations at the signing ceremony.