Founded in 2010, SureCash is one of the important players in Dhaka’s fintech space. The startup raised an investment of $7.00 million in 2014 from Osiris and has a growing user base. This is the creation story of SureCash, an excerpt from our interview with SureCash Founder Dr. Shahadat Khan:
“I always wanted to start a technology company in Bangladesh. When I was working in the R&D center of EyeBall Networks, I realized that we were developing software in Bangladesh but that software was used in other countries such as Japan, USA, Thailand, and the UK.
At some point, I started thinking about what products we can build that can be used by the people of this country. In Bangladesh, most adults already have mobile phones but only 30% of the people have financial services. Therefore, we wanted to build a financial services product using mobile phones. And that triggered the conception of SureCash.”
“I started SureCash from our Khilgaon home in 2010. After a couple of months, we took an office in Mohakhali DOHS and hired two people and became a four people team including our driver.”
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“SureCash is a mobile payment platform involving people, businesses, and the government in Bangladesh. We offer a complete payment solution for our customers and payment partners. Currently, customers can make and receive government payments, pay school and college fees, pay utility bills, pay for goods and services, and make person-to-person (P2P) transfers and we are deepening current verticals and expanding into new channels.
We have created an open payment network in partnership with 5 local banks, including one of the largest state banks and more than 550 payment partners. We have developed our own proprietary technology initially focusing on connecting schools, colleges, government education programs reaching the last mile and utilities that touch most lives.
Our business model is similar to VISA. We provide the platform, switch, backend support, distribution channel, joint marketing campaigns and business plans. We manage the network. You can co-brand with banks such as Rupali Bank SureCash and FSIBL First Pay SureCash.
We are a common, shared mobile banking and payment platform. We have built the software and platform from scratch in Bangladesh, we maintain the common agent network and take care of all other aspects of the platform.”
