Overview:

Established by a Royal Charter in May 1968, the Bank of Bhutan (BoB) is the oldest bank in the country. BoB has the distinction of being the largest commercial bank in Bhutan, making its presence felt in every Dzongkhag, and Major Township through a network of 54 branch offices.

The project objective for Modefin was to design and install a comprehensive Retail Payments System that would serve over 350,000 customers spread across Bhutan’s capital city, hilltop townships and remote mountain ranges. The initiative was to launch the Kingdom’s first-ever mobile-based banking application, named mBob, aimed at enabling intrabank payments, interbank payments and payment to third party service providers.

Implementation Process:

The frameworks used for development of various apps for Bank of Bhutan incorporated industry best practices such as

• Continuous integration process with GIT/Geritt/ Jenkins.
• Code review using Gerrit
• Test cases created by Quality Assurance (QA) team to ensure all possible scenarios are covered.
• Release of build only after QA signoff
• Detailed sessions on client requirements with change in flow or screens clearly captured to avoid any rework.

The plan was to introduce four different applications over a period of time with the first application being mBoB.  The most popular service in mBoB app is the Scan & Pay service which was launched in September 2017. With QR codes being powered with interoperable function, BoB customers welcomed QR payments as the most convenient method of payments, with more than 3,000 transactions daily on an average.

The second app, launched by Modefin in February 2018, was ‘Chharo,’ the first ever mobile e-wallet in the Kingdom, introduced to encourage a cashless economy and promote financial inclusion. The Chharo app was made available as a free download on Android and IOS platforms, allowing anyone with a smart phone to make secure digital payments across devices and channels. The application also enabled a marketplace model, bringing merchants and buyers on a single platform. Chharo as an e-wallet application is not linked to a bank account, and hence tourists and visitors can download the app for making epayments. Modefin has designed the app to interface with Bhutan Immediate Payment Services (BIPS) gateway, making it interoperable between all banks in the Kingdom.

The third app designed and launched by Modefin is ‘goBoB,’ which is an advanced version of Chharo. The app was launched in November 2021 as a digital wallet that empowers customers and noncustomers of the Bank to transact online.

BoBConnect, the 4th app designed by Modefin for Bank of Bhutan, addressed another key aspect of Retail Payments Systems – Agency Banking. BoB’s ‘BoBConnect’ helped to bring banking within the reach of customers across the sparsely populated Kingdom.

Benefits Achieved:

• Sustainability – The apps contributed to Bhutan’s sustainability goals by enabling paperless, cardless and cashless transactions.
• Ease of Use – User-friendly features encouraged even reluctant or not so tech savvy customers to sign up and use the apps.
• Scalability – Without opening additional brick and mortar branches, Bank of Bhutan was able to scale user numbers. On an average, the Bank registers 300 new migrations daily to the mBoB App.

Conclusion:

In the Bank’s account base of 350,000, over 200,000 customers operate almost 250,000 accounts through mBoB. When goBob, the upgraded version of Chharo was introduced, more than 25,000 customers signed up for the app in record time. Overall, the launch of multiple apps with diverse features helped Bank of Bhutan achieve an increase in online payments, reduce branch footfalls, lower its admin costs, reach out to the unserved, underserved and unbanked through Agency Banking, and create a unified Retail Payments system in the Kingdom of Bhutan.

Key Facts:

• Bank Name: Bank of Bhutan (BoB)
• Bank Founded In: 1967
• Bank HQ: Thimpu, Bhutan
• Vendor Name: Modefin
• Solution Implemented: mBoB, implemented on Modefin OEBP