Kona’s payment system heads to Bangladesh

Far right, Minaoar Hossain Tanzil, Managing Director of Kona Software Lab, poses with Tanvir A Mishuk, Managing Director of Third Wave Technologies, far left, and Sushanto Kumar Mondal, Director General of Bangladesh Post Office. [KONA I]

Kona I, a smart card solutions company, announced on Monday that it will sign a contract with Bangladeshi telecommunications company Third Wave Technologies to provide a card payment platform.

The platform, dubbed Kona Card, will facilitate money transfers, payments, remittance, and utilities payment services to the South Asian country’s post office customers.

Third Wave Technologies is assigned to cover digital financial transactions for the Bangladesh Post Office.

The card solutions company said that Kona Card can be used on both smartphones and feature phones.

As Kona Card complies with a global technical standard called EMV, it will be compatible with foreign markets.

The financial platform deals mainly with payments through prepaid and debit cards, and Kona I expects the platform to be exported to other major economies where the use of such cards is widespread.

“The world’s prepaid card market is expected to grow to $3.1 trillion in size by 2022, and the U.S. pre-paid card market will be further developed in the future.

“Since Kona Card is a platform built not only with domestic but also global business in mind, we will accelerate our advance into overseas markets including the U.S.,” said CEO Cho Chung-il.

Kona I acquires 50 percent of its annual revenue from overseas sales and operates overseas branches in the United States, China and India, as well as a technology research center in Bangladesh.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [park.eunjee@joongang.co.kr]