Digital governance must be watertight

Digital governance must be made watertight with strong guardrails to ensure all consumers are fully protected as people across Bangladesh embrace e-commerce, said a noted economist yesterday.

Zaidi Sattar, chairman of the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh, said access to digital financial service (DFS) is reaching the remote corners of Bangladesh and consumers of all shades, poor or non-poor, urban or rural, are embracing e-commerce.  So, consumers have to be fully protected.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

"In particular, the rural population in remote areas, hitherto left out in the digital divide, must be given robust protection under a system of digital governance that imparts a good sense of security for their monetary transactions."

He made the remarks while speaking at a webinar on the State of DFS Consumer Protection, which was organised by the think-tank.

Sattar said a digital revolution is sweeping the globe propelling the speed with which financial transactions are carried out. Brick and mortar banks could soon become historical relics.

But with this technological revolution comes the challenge of "cybersecurity" at the national level.  "On the ground, however, we have retail consumers making billions of transactions each day trusting the digital regime. That trust must be based on a watertight digital system of consumer protection."

The economist described DFS in Bangladesh a technical innovation and a social revolution rolled into one. But DFS is built on another platform, mobile telephony, which constitutes another technical innovation and social revolution for the Bangladesh economy and society.

"The two parallel innovations are the building blocks fueling another revolution in the economic landscape -- e-commerce."  Sattar thinks like many other growth accelerations, Bangladesh is well on its journey towards a fully paperless digital society in the coming years, a journey that will catapult Bangladesh society securely into the digital age well before this decade is out.

He said the Covid-19 pandemic has given a boost to the digital economy and e-commerce. That implies a rapid rise in human productivity and economic growth.

"This transformation is not likely to result in unemployment, as many would surmise. On the contrary, research evidence around the globe and across history suggests that such innovations create more jobs than getting eliminated in the transformation process."