Dhaka, July 23 -- Former Bangladesh Bank Governor and Distinguished Fellow of the Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh (PRI) Ahsan H Mansur on Thursday underscored the need to accelerate Bangladesh's transition to a cashless economy through an Inclusive Instant Payment System (IIPS), saying the central bank spends around Tk 20,000 crore annually on cash management.

Speaking at the inception workshop on "Analysis of the Inclusive Instant Payment System (IIPS) in Bangladesh and Cross-Border Remittance as a Use Case" at PRI in Banani, he said financial inclusion, digital payments and the IIPS should be pursued as a single, integrated national strategy to reduce payment costs.

Mansur said reducing the cost of digital transactions is esse...