OTAF will no longer be required for international credit card transactions and online purchases

The Dhaka Times Desk In a circular issued by Bangladesh Bank on November 14, it said that the fulfillment of OTAF in online shopping and international transactions was mandatory until now. No need for OTAF from now on.

Compliance with OTAF was till now mandatory for online shopping and international transactions. After verifying the form, customers can make transactions and shop online, subject to the permission of Bangladesh Bank.

An urgent meeting of BASIS was held yesterday with the senior officials of Bangladesh Bank regarding the situation arising around international transactions of credit cards online.

Head of Cards/Retailers of 11 banks were present in that meeting. Syed Almas Kabir, president of the organization, Shoaib Ahmed Masood, vice-president and Syed Mohammad Kamal, chairman of the Digital Marketing Standing Committee of BASIS, were present on behalf of BASIS.

In the meeting, a detailed discussion was held with the senior officials of Bangladesh Bank as to why the Online Transaction Authorization (OTAF) will discourage consumers from online shopping and what difficulties the banks will face as per Circular No. 26 issued on 14 November. The BASIS team was able to convince the senior officials of Bangladesh Bank through a long discussion. In this context, another circular was issued from Bangladesh Bank within a few hours. The issue of OTAF has been taken up in the new circular.

In this regard, BASIS president Syed Almas Kabir said, 'It seems that this is the first time that circulars have been issued in such a short time! Due to this new directive, the problems caused by international credit card transactions are no more.

Syed Almas Kabir also said that Bangladesh Bank had issued such notification to prevent illegal transactions. Many other methods can be adopted to control these illegal transactions. Many banks have already stopped transactions related to Facebook and Google. Some banks say that Facebook and Google issues are not mentioned in the online transaction guidelines. As the matter is not mentioned here, this transaction will remain closed until further instructions. Transactions are also being made from many banks. He also said that the problem will be solved very soon and transactions related to Facebook and Google can be done from all banks.

Almas Kabir also said, 'On the eve of going to Vietnam on November 17, we also had an urgent meeting with Bangladesh Bank Deputy Governor Ahmed Jamal from BASIS. I also made a written request to him. In view of that, the meeting was organized immediately after our return to Dhaka. I am extremely grateful to all concerned officials of Bangladesh Bank for taking this step quickly. At the same time I thank all Bank MDs and Heads of Cards/Retailers for staying with BASIS. Needless to say, I thank our Information Technology State Minister Junaid Ahmed Palak bhai for bringing this problem to the attention of the Information Technology Advisor.