Strategic Consultation Session on Development of Code of Conduct Guideline for MFS Agents

As an ongoing effort to promote digital financial inclusion and economic empowerment for vulnerable women, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Department of Women Affairs (DWA) co-organized a strategic consultation session on behavioral guidelines for MFS agents. This initiative is part of a series of interventions to ensure systemic changes across the social safety net payment (SSNP) ecosystem. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation supported these interventions with technical assistance from LightCastle Partners.

The session focused on understanding different stakeholders’ perspectives on how a specific guideline for Mobile Financial Service (MFS) agents can enable better ‘last-mile’ services for the SSNP beneficiaries. This is part of a broader plan to empower SSNP beneficiaries with technology and financial literacy support.

The Director General of the DWA led the discussion with representatives from various government agencies, top MFS providers, and financial organizations.

Representatives from various financial service providers such as bKash, Nagad, One Bank, Dutch-Bangla Bank, and Banglalink discussed how they could cascade the guidelines among their agents and work with other system actors.

Regulators and industry players made renewed commitments towards enabling a gender-inclusive payment system, particularly conducive for SSNP beneficiaries. The stakeholders will be in a follow-up consultation session to develop and ratify the MFS agent behavior guideline.