Page 40 - ICE BUSINESS TIMES February 2020

ICT Sector

Odyssey BASIS and the Government shall continue to brand Bangladesh is critical for the potential
both locally and in world forums aggressively.
exponential growth of our economy.

Most of our population is still not
Southtech Ascend was one of the winners at the BASIS
within the realms of FinTech. Our
National ICT Awards 2019, what do you think this
people are hard-working and have the
achievement will add to your portfolio?
given the right opportunities. To
Awards are amazing because they give us an external potential to do incredible work if
mobilize this vast human capital, we
of a Visionary Ascend Financials. It has a unique modular architecture that allow people to participate in online
recognition for the hard and smart work we have put in to make
need contemporary mechanisms that
caters to a wide range of financial institutions: financial
marketplaces and exchange goods
cooperatives, microfinance institutions, micro-insurance
and services against digital money
institutions, non-banking financial institutions, leasing
companies, and banks.
therefore, have a huge role to play in
So it was incredible to win BASIS National ICT Award 2019 for efficiently and fairly. FinTechs,
the growth of our economy.
In a conversation, Syed Mamnun Quader, Founding Ascend Financials. It was not achieved overnight; the team has
been working on this product for almost five years.
Director, Managing Director and Chief Executive The product is built for the cloud, and so we can reach out to How is Southtech adding to the
O cer of Southtech Group, discusses the change started almost ten years ago clients in far-flung countries to offer this solution from our FinTech momentum in
when the Government of Prime
challenges that the ICT sector is facing, the Minister Sheikh Hasina took a Tier-3 data centres or any other commercial cloud service Bangladesh?
importance of adopting FinTech and the humble genuine interest in developing this vendor such as Azure or AWS. We are keen on becoming the
beginnings of Southtech Group. sector. The vision of a digital economy I firmly believe that once you have a killer product, you are pioneers of FinTech revolution in
was meant to transform the likely to get recognized both nationally and internationally. We, Bangladesh. With our financial
operations of the bureaucracy as well therefore, expect many more awards coming our way in the software and related services to the
By Asif Tarafdar as the private sector in general. future. microfinance institutions, our clients
However, I must admit that it is managed to reach out to their clients
taking much longer than expected to What are the significant challenges faced by the sector even 20 years ago. With the advent of
transform the bureaucracy as there that might impede prospects? the likes of bKash, Rocket and Nogod,
Starting from the 90s, you are considered one of the still remains many roadblocks. The There are several significant challenges. Number one is quality our financial technology makes it
pioneers of the Bangladeshi software industry; how reluctance to reengineer their education. Our graduates need plenty of training before they easier for our clients to do business
have you seen the sector evolve over the years? operational processes that would can be assigned to formal work. Their communication skills and faster and better. Currently, our
improve efficiency dramatically and critical thinking capabilities need significant improvement. financial solutions process more than
When BASIS was formed in 1997, we had difficulty in having 122 million transactions per month.
enough software and information processing firms to form an fear of losing control is the primary Concerning export, the reluctance of Bangladesh Bank to allow Ascend Financials, our next
association! With just 17 members to start the association, we roadblock. I see very few people, both local companies to invest in overseas offices to generate more generation financial product, has
certainly had a humble beginning. Since then, we have come a in the private and government sectors incoming orders is mind-boggling. We are not asking for many delivery channels, and we
long way, but we still have a long journey ahead. calculating the overall cost of owning government funding – our investment would be made from our expect that we shall gain a significant
In the early days, the government universities were churning their existing processes versus the dollar earnings! share of the market in the future.
out only around 100-150 computer science and software savings they would make by Funding is another bottleneck. The bureaucracy surrounding
engineering graduates per year. To make things worse, most of reengineering their processes and equity investments by the Do you have any advice for
these students were eyeing to leave the country for better procedures. government is so complicated aspiring tech entrepreneurs of
opportunities abroad. Private sector universities were not Establishing hi-tech parks around the that one would have to give up our country?
offering Computer Science degrees, and so we had immense country is also an excellent initiative software development and
difficulty in expanding while keeping the quality of our but building easy access to amenities devote all one’s time to get Yes, focus on an area that you are
products and services. such as schools, hospitals, shops, etc. funding! The private funding is truly good at. Don’t be a follower and
It took a lot of courage and determination to convince the and easy commute to these facilities also too small, often not try to be a leader with a unique
government of the time that the ICT Industry was the industry will make things much more vibrant exceeding USD 50,000. product or service. You will have a
of the future. Tax holidays and exemptions, along with the for the IT Industry. Inflexibility to reengineer much better chance of success by
duty-free import of hardware by successive governments, were I see a lot of potential for the processes to improve things is adopting this policy. Never give up;
undoubtedly beneficial for entrepreneurs who had to fund Bangladeshi IT industry. We are another huge bottleneck, always find a way to succeed.
everything from their resources. Funding has always been a currently exporting around a billion especially in the public sector.
massive problem from the very beginning, and it continues to dollars’ worth of software and Some government officials are What is your vision for
be so even now. information services a year. Besides, reluctant to give up their manual Southtech Group in a decade?
In 1995-2000, a small number of government sector we are selling around half a billion processes. They can be We aspire to be a household name
corporations, the stock exchanges and their brokers, and some dollars’ worth of software and reengineered to make them more within Bangladesh through
private sector banks were the first buyers of software and information services to the local friendly and efficient. maintaining a culture of smart
information processing services. Later on, we saw some economy. We are now planning to innovations aimed at our clients’.
retailers and microfinance institutions, also showing interest grow our export and domestic markets As a growing economy, how Internationally, we wish to compete
in automation. At Southtech, we had customers in the Dhaka by 100% and 150% respectively in the crucial is it for Bangladesh with the very best in our chosen
Stock Exchange and several NGOs and retailers. next two years. I firmly believe that to adopt and facilitate fields of business, offering unique
I remember that the automation of the Chittagong Port began we are still tiny compared to what we FinTech at a fast pace? solutions to our clients and win their
during the time of the Caretaker Government. Still, the real can be, and therefore I hope that Adoption of Financial Technology trust.

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