Tanvir A Mishuk
Founder & Managing Director, Nagad
Passionate business magnate, sprightly investor & philanthropist, able to shake up low performing businesses to convert from “Nightmarish Dystopia” into “Utopia”!
One of the most prominent investors in Singapore now, Tanvir A Mishuk, has been instrumental in turning around stodgy industries in the region. A business magnate with prejudice for state-of-the-art technology, operationally nimble investor and philanthropist.
Visionary with a steadfast commitment to excellence in managing numerous business ventures in more than 17 countries around the world. Successful in efficiently & effectively transforming businesses and adopting a culture of data-driven decision making.
Contributing Digitalization Abroad
The comfort of carrying out daily activities with a click/finger-tap was nearly unimaginable even a decade ago, especially, in contrast to all the free video/audio calling and messaging apps available today, the entire audiovisual connectivity across the world was quite manual, analog and tedious.
Even in a modern and organized economy like Singapore, the telecommunications industry was gradually looming on its path to proper structuring. Right then, Tanvir A Mishuk found a desire for creating a human-centered technology-based business and stepped into the telecom industry of Singapore.
At about a decade ago, in 2011, Mishuk arrived in Singapore with a fresh innovatory idea – and who knew then that could transform the traditional telecom business model. The very beginning of his journey as a novel entrepreneur was filled with several obstacles. He found that, by-law only national and local companies were allowed to start new ventures in Singapore.
After days of juggling between the authorities, finally, he could able to collect the permission and submitted his proposal to the IDM to initiate his new telecom venture – Telekom Asia Pte. Limited. Competing against more than 19 global companies, Mishuk’s innovative proposal was selected and he successfully returned to Bangladesh with a license in hand.
Entering Bangladesh With Opportunities
A Bangladeshi by birth, with a diverse work career, he always made an effort to keep up with local business trends and industry news updates. On top of that, his knack for technology and innovative entrepreneurial ideas had fueled his enthusiasm to step into futuristic business models. Here Mishuk aimed to take a valiant leap forward and went out of his home, his comfort zone.
He was highly inspired by then Singapore’s vastly multifaceted and dynamic business ecosystem and had taken an early step into the world of entrepreneurship & launched his futuristic business plan. Fortunately, many of his friends, advisors, and acquaintances with vast experience in banking and various technological arenas from Singapore played a pivotal role in motivating Mishuk to take the next big step forward.
The time was around 2010 when he keenly noticed that all the telecom operators in Bangladesh were operating under various international business enterprises. Besides, all the international calls were controlled by those companies. This truly intrigued him, especially the fact that no solid local players were operating. Soon an idea shined and he had left his well-waged private company job to pursue his newfound dream.
Visionary Business Mind
From the beginning, Mishuk’s dream was to come up with disruptive business model which could bring benefits to the common people. With this vision, initially he aimed to lower the call charges, from BDT 40-50 to BDT 2.
Soon after with its newfound success in the market, Telekom Asia went on to take over International Gateway Operator (IGW) in Bangladesh which was then struggling with significant losses. And in just 3 years, it took a complete U-turn and became the number 1 company in the industry.
Mishuk continued his growth & investment in the telecommunications industry for several years until around 2018 when social media platforms & applications like WhatsApp and Viber started to become increasingly popular.
With his keen insight on the current industry and knowledge of the upcoming technological advancements, he was able to foresee that FinTech was the future industry of unparalleled growth and impact on the lives of the people of Bangladesh.
Massive Financial Inclusion
Even in 2018, over 60% population of Bangladesh remained unbanked or used age-old traditional banking services. Internet banking was still relatively new as a concept and was not enough user-friendly. On the other hand, the Mobile Financial Services (MFS) sector, was booming rapidly.
Although the nature of this market was oligopolistic. However, there was only one conspicuously somewhat monopoly player in the market – bKash which is backed by two renowned global giants, Alipay and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
With his hands-on experiences of Singapore’s dynamic business environment and his agile thinking and analytical ability, it was time for Mishuk to march into new territories – a new industry where lack of awareness, poor outreach, evident barriers of monopoly was ruling.
Despite witnessing this potential industry as an outsider, he could pinpoint the numerous opportunities it bore. His initial target was to lower the cost of opening each MFS account by lowering per customer acquisition cost.
New Financial Revolution Began
Mishuk went on approaching the officials of Bangladesh Post Office and Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology. After numerous bona fide screenings, his proposal was conceded and shortly after that, he launched “Nagad” with the collaboration of Bangladesh Post Office- the first-ever Digital Financial Services (DFS) of the country.
Nagad Started Its Journey
March 26, 2019, on the auspicious Independence Day of Bangladesh, Nagad began its journey officially after it got inaugurated by Sheikh Hasina, The Honorable Prime Minister of Bangladesh.
Soon after that, with the support of Sajeeb Wazed Joy, Advisor to the Government of Bangladesh on Information and Communication Technology and the Porichoy App, Nagad introduced Digital Know-Your-Customer (DKYC) for the first time and started the process of eliminating the traditional, lengthy and unfriendly manual process of opening a digital financial account.
As its continued progress, Nagad eventually introduced the SMTAP (Send Money To Any Phone number) technology and offered the lowest ever charges on Cash-Out & Send Money services.
Moreover, Nagad has happened to bring more than 20 million people under the umbrella of digital financial services within the 10 months from its inception and today, daily more than the worth of BDT 1 billion transactions are getting facilitated on Nagad’s platform.
His Idea Started Blooming
Today, Nagad stands as the second-largest DFS in Bangladesh attained by the relentless efforts and persistence of that man with a bright idea. At the right time, Mishuk was still able to find a way to harness his entrepreneurial skills and knowledge to compete against an almost invincible proverbial giant.
To add more feathers to his heavy hat, in 2020, Telekom receives more accolades as it has become a Finclusion venture. Soon, he is looking forward in setting colossal plans for Nagad in motion as some of the biggest names of the global scene such as Google, Facebook and Tencent are trying to start a dialogue.
A Global Citizen Working Relentlessly for His Root
Either with Nagad or Telekom Asia, Mishuk has proven himself as more of a visionary, who consciously defeats entrepreneurial myopia. Today, as a decorated businessman, he continues to remain humble and focused, and always carries an invincible passion to contribute to the Singapore business ecosystem and stretch his enterprising activities around the globe as well.
Achievements
- Modernized a 150-years-old trade – Bangladesh Postal Service
- Facilitating government disbursement of assistance fund multiple times
- Introduced state-of-the-art Digital KYC for opening MFS account
- Affiliations with multiple government, private and non-profit organizations in helping SMEs, women empowerment and making financial inclusion safer
- Made it to inclusive 50 Fintech cohort list for 2020
- Awarded for contribution to digital Bangladesh journey at the closing ceremony of Digital Bangladesh Fair 2020
- Multiple Failures
