Bangladesh’s internet penetration stands at 53 percent, trailing regional leaders such as Bhutan at 88 percent and the Maldives at 85 percent, according to a new Asian Development Bank (ADB) report. The figure places Bangladesh broadly in line with several neighbours, with India at 57 percent and Nepal at 56 percent, while Sri Lanka, despite near-universal 4G coverage, records active usage of only 51 percent.
The ADB’s Digital Public Infrastructure: Landscape and Opportunities in South Asia report identifies affordability constraints and low digital literacy as the primary barriers to adoption in Bangladesh. It warns of a stagnating penetration rate and a widening digital gender gap.
Only 19 percent of women in Bangladesh access mobile data, compared with 36 percent of men. Rural users are 29 percent less likely to use mobile internet than urban populations, compounded by a functional digital literacy rate of just 49 percent. As a result, large segments of the population remain excluded from the country’s digital transformation despite high mobile phone ownership.
The study assessed six South Asian countries, examining the maturity of their digital public infrastructure (DPI) and identifying institutional gaps and high-impact opportunities for reform and investment.
It found that Bangladesh’s foundational digital identity system lags behind regional peers. The Smart National ID currently covers around 40 percent of the population, compared with India’s Aadhaar system at 99 percent. Bhutan and the Maldives have also achieved higher coverage, at 46 percent and 47 percent respectively.
Crucially, Bangladesh’s NID system lacks open APIs and a consent-based architecture, limiting its role as a universal digital building block for public services and the wider economy.
Physical connectivity remains another vulnerability. Bangladesh relies on two international undersea cables that follow similar routes, increasing the risk of widespread outages. By contrast, Sri Lanka and the Maldives benefit from more resilient connectivity through multiple, geographically diverse submarine links.
At the operational level, many rural government offices function under low-bandwidth conditions, sometimes as low as 5 Mbps, constraining their ability to deliver digital services effectively.
Institutional fragmentation further compounds these challenges. Unlike India, which has established specialised and empowered bodies such as the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Bangladesh’s digital governance landscape is marked by overlapping mandates among the ICT Division, the Bangladesh Computer Council, and Aspire to Innovate (a2i). The absence of a binding legal framework to mandate integration has left core registries operating in silos.
In agriculture, soil, water, and weather data are managed by separate ministries with no common architecture. A similar pattern is visible in digital payments. While India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) powers about 85 percent of retail transactions, Bangladesh’s interoperability platform, Binimoy, is described as “stalled”, leaving more than half of retail transactions cash-based.
The crown jewel and the ‘phygital’ bridge
Despite these gaps, the ADB identifies areas of global-standard strength. Mobile financial services (MFS) are described as the “crown jewel” of Bangladesh’s digital transition. Platforms such as bKash and Nagad now facilitate nearly 24 million transactions daily. bKash alone serves around 75 million registered users and accounts for roughly 75 percent of transaction volume.
Supported by a nationwide network of about 379,000 agents, MFS has become the primary driver of financial inclusion.
Another standout is Bangladesh’s “phygital” bridge: a network of approximately 9,500 digital centres serving six to seven million rural users each month. These centres act as access points for citizens lacking the skills to navigate online platforms independently.
The infrastructure has reportedly prevented 12.9 billion in-person government visits and saved an estimated $21.8 billion in time and travel costs.
Health DPI is also gaining momentum. The Surokkha vaccine platform now serves nearly 60 million users, and universal health IDs are being piloted. ADB modelling suggests a fully implemented health DPI stack could generate $500 million annually by reducing duplicate tests and enabling real-time immunisation tracking.
Path to 2030 goals
To reach its target of $5 billion in ICT exports by 2030, the report says Bangladesh must shift from a vendor-led approach to a strategic partnership model with the private sector.
In October 2025, the government approved the Personal Data Protection Ordinance, a critical step in building the trust architecture required for wider adoption.
By enacting a unified DPI governance law and expanding the Bangla QR code framework, Bangladesh could leapfrog legacy systems and redefine its position in South Asia’s digital race.
