BRAC Bank’s ‘Digital Onboarding’ has responded to SME banking
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BRAC Bank’s ‘Digital Onboarding’ to facilitate account opening for Small and Medium Businesses (SMEs) has received a huge response among customers.
SME entrepreneurs can open business accounts within a few minutes thanks to this process, which has been introduced for the first time in the banking sector of Bangladesh. As a result, SME customers can easily and quickly open bank accounts and come under banking services. The people involved in the sector believe that this will encourage them to transact through banking channels.
বিজ্ঞাপন
Digital onboarding was launched as a ‘pilot project’ in February 2025 to facilitate opening of SME business accounts, the bank said. Through which BRAC Bank has reached the milestone of opening 50,000 SME accounts within a short period of time. This process of SME account opening has made BRAC Bank’s SME service more dynamic by going beyond the conventional method of digital platform in accordance with Bangladesh Bank’s institutional account opening policy. It has also played an important role in achieving customer satisfaction.
Syed Abu Russell, founder and CEO of Artistic Studio and Construction recently opened an SME account for his business at BRAC Bank. He commented that BRAC Bank officials helped in any service including account opening. Abu Rasel said, “I have previously opened SME accounts for business in other banks. It took me several days to open those accounts. However, opening my new SME account through BRAC Bank’s digital onboarding took less than an hour, which was unimaginable before. Within this time I was able to go through the process of getting the new account number and starting the transaction. Apart from this, account management is also very easy through the “Aastha” app. As a result, banking-related stress in business work has reduced a lot.
বিজ্ঞাপন
BRAC Bank’s Additional Managing Director and Head of SME Banking Syed Abdul Momen said, “We were trying to digitize the process of opening new accounts of the SME sector from the beginning. Because, our experience says, the more complexity and effort at the customer level can be reduced, the more customer satisfaction increases. It is from that thought that we have come up with “Digital Onboarding” services through innovation in SME account opening.’
Syed Abdul Momen also said, ‘By introducing this new process, we have been able to give the account number almost immediately after opening a customer’s account. It takes a maximum of three working days to complete all the tasks including check book and debit card for this account. Conventionally, it would have taken at least seven to eight days to provide this service to SME customers. In other words, it now takes less than half the time for customers to open an account. As a result, customer satisfaction also increased after the introduction of digital onboarding. At the same time, this new method is playing a role in saving the environment by reducing the use of paper.
According to BRAC Bank sources, the bank is currently serving about two and a half lakh SME customers. By the end of 2025, the loan portfolio given to these customers has increased by 48 percent compared to the previous year to about 35 thousand crore rupees. However, despite disbursing so many loans, the bank’s non-performing loans in the SME sector are only 2 percent, which is the lowest among state-owned and private banks in the country.
Apart from this, at the end of the same period, the deposit amount of SME customers in BRAC Bank is about Tk 19 thousand crores. The growth in these deposits has been around 22 per cent in the last one year, which is the highest among leading banks in the country.
Managing Director and CEO of BRAC Bank Tarek Refat Ullah Khan said, ‘Following the path shown by the founder of our bank, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, we have been giving utmost importance to the SME sector of the country since the beginning. In line with that, we have introduced digital onboarding to provide better banking services to SME entrepreneurs. After its launch we have been able to increase the productivity and efficiency of the SME banking staff besides increasing our customer satisfaction. As a result, our operating expenses have come down compared to before.
Tarek Refat Ullah Khan also said, ‘Still, a large part of the country’s SME entrepreneurs remain outside the banking channel. But they are one of the main driving forces of our country’s economy. Our aim is to bring one lakh SME entrepreneurs into the banking channel within the next one year through digital onboarding and accelerate the Central Bank’s financial inclusion programme.
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