Impact of e-money on money supply: Estimation and policy implication for Bangladesh

Abstract

With the rapid proliferation of mobile telephony and the establishment of an IT-enabled payment and settlement system, Bangladesh, nowadays, is experiencing a meteoric rise in the usage of mobile financial services (MFS). As more and more people are opting to use this service, a huge number of mobile accounts are opened every day and a substantial amount of money is deposited, withdrawn and transferred frequently through the mobile network. This ever-increasing amount of mobile money flowing through the network may have a sizeable impact on the overall money supply of the country. Thus far, no systematic study has been conducted to quantify the impact of the mobile money on the conventional money supply of Bangladesh. In this study, we attempt to quantify the contribution of mobile money on the money supply which is an important quantity-based anchor of monetary policy in Bangladesh. Apart from quantifying the impact of digital (mobile) money on the money supply, we also qualitatively discuss its implication on another price-based nominal anchor of monetary policy in Bangladesh, i.e., interest rate. Moreover, in recent times, the government of Bangladesh has capped market interest rate with an intent to boost up business activities and in doing so, it (the government) has irrevocably broken the money market equilibrium which may result into dead-weight loss according to economic theory. Here, we qualitatively argue that financial inclusion through MFS has the potential to substantially reduce market interest rate without any manual intervention by significantly adding to the money supply which is supposed to be resulted into a reduced interest rate as an eventual consequence.