BTCL to add metro rail payment with its 'Alaap Pay'

Dhaka, Jan 03 (V7N) —State-owned Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL) has planned to incorporate metro rail and other utility payments with its wallet "Alaap Pay".
BTCL has eyed to move up with new features so its clients could avail different types of utility payment services under a single window.

"BTCL has future plans to integrate payment for services such as metrorail, flyover and bridges through Alaap Wallet," BTCL Managing Director Md Anwar Hossain said.

Apart from these, he said, BTCL also plans to introduce utility bill payments for electricity and water through Alaap Wallet.

BTCL officials familiar with the move said that they are talking with the Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited (DMTCL) to figure out how they could offer the services.

They also said that BTCL already has collaboration with different payment gateways.

For some bill payment, it needs the permission of Bangladesh Bank.

However, Alaap Pay doesn't require any permission from Bangladesh Bank for its own payment, they added.

Initially, BTCL had developed its wallet Alaap Pay for the convenience of its customer for payment of their landphone bills.

Meanwhile, in the wake of robust use of OTT apps for voice, messaging and other services, the state-owned company has also moved up to reshape its dialer "Alaap" application in the New Year-2025 to attract more users at home and abroad.

To this end, BTCL is working to incorporate new features like SMS, hosted IP telephone, voice broadcast, bulk SMS, cloud storage alongside opening dedicated customer care centre for its calling app, "Alaap".

The BTCL Managing Director earlier said that they have planned to amplify the use of Alaap in every sphere of society.

"We will boost up our marketing activities for Alaap, incorporating new features with it," he added.

Anwar Hossain said that they are also working to cut tariff to provide affordable call rates and SMS packages to the customers.

The state-owned landphone operator launched the over-the-top (OTT) calling application Alaap in March, 2021 with facilities of making calls to any mobile or landphone through a unique subscriber's number.

As WhatsApp, Telegram, Imo like apps were still dominating the Bangladeshi market with instant messaging, free calls over the internet as well as video calls, the BTCL rolled out its Bangladeshi version "Alaap" to reduce the dependency of foreign apps as well as secure the personal data of local people.

Now, talking and chatting from "Alaap" to "Alaap" using the internet is free.

However, when it comes to making phone calls to a subscriber of any mobile or landline operator who is not using Alaap, the caller will have to pay the bills, at the same time as having paid for internet connectivity.