filps appoints Abul Kashem Md Shirin as advisor for Bangladesh

filps Limited, the DIFC and ADGM regulated fintech and digital banking  infrastructure company, announced the appointment of Abul Kashem Md Shirin, former managing director and CEO of Dutch-Bangla Bank PLC and current Independent Director on the Board of Shimanto  Bank PLC, as its advisor for Bangladesh, reports a press release.

Shirin is one of the most respected figures in Bangladesh banking and among the earliest architects of the country's digital financial infrastructure.

Over a career spanning four decades, he led Dutch-Bangla Bank as managing director and CEO for more than nine years, following nearly eight years as deputy managing director and six years as head of the bank's Information Technology Division, which he joined in 2003. 

Under his leadership, Dutch-Bangla Bank built the country's largest ATM and POS network and pioneered  mobile financial services through Rocket, the agent driven MFS platform that carried banking into rural  Bangladesh, alongside biometric agent banking, EMV cards, QR payments and app-based banking at national  scale, many of them firsts for the country, while centralising operations and making the bank paperless. 

Before joining Dutch-Bangla Bank, he served as deputy general manager and head of IT at BASIC Bank.

Shirin holds a Master of Science in Computer Science and Engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, a postgraduate degree from the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, and an honours degree from Bangladesh Agricultural University.

He is the author of three books on technology and has served in leadership roles within the Association of Bankers Bangladesh. He currently serves as Independent Director and Member of the Board of Directors of Shimanto Bank PLC.

In his advisory capacity, Shirin will guide filps on the priorities of the Bangladesh banking sector, the  direction of its regulatory and digital finance agenda, and the standards of governance, resilience and  service that the country's financial institutions rightly expect of their technology partners.

“Bangladesh is not a market we are entering. It is a market we are committed to, with live production deployments already serving leading banks and a growing pipeline of institutional partnerships. Shirin has spent his career building the digital foundations of Bangladesh banking, and there is no better guide to what the sector needs and how it deserves to be served. His counsel will shape how we build for Bangladesh, in Bangladesh's own terms,” said Biswas Dhakal, CEO, filps.

“I have spent my working life convinced that technology, applied with discipline and respect for  regulation, can bring banking within reach of every Bangladeshi. filps brings something rare to this work:  it has operated digital wallets, payment networks and digital banks at national scale before offering that  capability to others. I look forward to helping filps serve the banks, the regulator and the people of Bangladesh with the seriousness this sector deserves,” said Abul Kashem Md Shirin.

The appointment reflects a deliberate element of filps strategy across the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia: in every market it serves, filps works with senior figures who have led the sector from within, so that its engagement is shaped by local regulatory context, institutional realities and national priorities rather than imported assumptions.

In Bangladesh, filps platforms are already live in production at leading commercial banks, and the company is engaged with a number of institutions across digital banking, digital lending, merchant ecosystems and fraud and risk intelligence.