Dhaka, Oct. 13 -- Spadework gets started to establish cross-border digital payment system for sub-regional bloc BIMSTEC to deepen economic integration and promote financial inclusion across South and Southeast Asia.

Sources say the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is taking the step for intra-regional payment mechanism in the wake of volatility in global monetary system and 'trade wars'.

The BIMSTEC Secretary-General, Indra Mani Pandey, confirmed that the bloc, in collaboration with the Asian Development Bank (ADB), recently held a consultation workshop to explore the feasibility of introducing such a digital payment mechanism to enable seamless transactions among member- countries...