How to open a bKash merchant account for your online store

Most Bangladeshi online sellers start by taking bKash on a personal number: the customer sends money, screenshots the confirmation, and you match it to the order by hand. It works at five orders a day. At thirty it becomes a second job, and at some point bKash itself will ask why a personal account is receiving business payments.

The fix is a merchant account — but "bKash merchant account" covers more than one product, and picking the wrong one is the most common reason a store cannot take bKash at checkout. This guide explains which account does what, what an online store actually needs, and how to get from application to a working Pay with bKash button.

One note before we start: bKash's requirements, fees and application forms are set by bKash and change from time to time. Where we describe documents or steps, treat this as a map; the current, authoritative list is always on bKash's own merchant pages.

Personal, merchant, payment gateway — which is which

bKash has three kinds of account that a seller might use, and they do different jobs.

Personal account. The wallet on your own phone. It is for individuals, it has personal transaction limits, and its terms do not allow it to be used as a business collection account. Customers can send money to it, but there is no way for a website to know a payment happened except a screenshot.

Merchant account (including the smaller retail-merchant tier). A business account for receiving payments. Customers pay through the Payment option in their bKash app or by scanning your QR code, and the money lands in your merchant wallet. You get a merchant dashboard, business-level limits, and a business identity. This is the right account for a physical shop counter, for Facebook-page selling, and for taking payments by QR — but on its own it still does not talk to a website.

Payment gateway (bKash Checkout / PGW). This is the merchant product that a website integrates with. When a customer chooses bKash at checkout, your store sends the amount to bKash, bKash shows its own secure payment screen, the customer enters their number, OTP and PIN, and bKash tells your store the payment succeeded — automatically, in seconds, with no screenshot. The gateway is tied to a merchant account; you cannot have one without the other.

So, for an online store the answer is: a merchant account with the payment gateway enabled. A merchant account alone gives you a QR code; the gateway is what makes the checkout button work.

What documents to prepare

bKash asks for business identity documents when you apply for a merchant account, and the gateway has its own onboarding on top. The exact list is on bKash's merchant application page and can change, but merchants are commonly asked for some combination of:

• A trade licence in the business name (see our note on trade licences for online businesses if you do not have one yet).
• The owner's NID and a photograph.
• TIN certificate, depending on the account type.
• A bank account in the business or owner's name for settlement.
• Your business address and contact details, and for the gateway, your website address.

Two practical tips. First, use the same business name and spelling everywhere — trade licence, bank account, bKash application, your website's footer. Mismatches are the most common cause of delay. Second, apply before you need it. Approval takes days to weeks, and your launch date should not depend on it.

How the application works

The process, in broad strokes:

1. Apply for a merchant account through bKash's merchant page or a bKash business office, submitting the documents above.
2. Verification. bKash checks the documents and may call to confirm business details. Answer from the number you gave; a missed verification call is a common delay.
3. Merchant account activated. You receive your merchant number and access to the merchant dashboard. At this point you can take QR and app payments.
4. Request payment gateway (Checkout) access. This is a separate step. You tell bKash about your website, agree to the gateway terms, and bKash provisions your gateway credentials.
5. Sandbox, then live. bKash usually provides test (sandbox) credentials first so the integration can be checked with fake money, then live credentials once the store is ready.

If a bKash representative or a payment aggregator handles part of this for you, the steps are the same underneath.

Where your API credentials come from

Once gateway access is approved, bKash gives you a small set of credentials that identify your store to the gateway. They typically include an app key, an app secret, a username and a password, and you receive a sandbox set and a live set. These are the values a website — or a platform on your behalf — uses to create payments and confirm them.

Treat them like a bank password. Do not paste them into a chat, do not put them in a public repository, and if a developer or agency had them and no longer works with you, ask bKash to rotate them.

Connecting bKash to your store

What happens next depends on how your store is built.

On a custom-built site, a developer implements the bKash Checkout API: creating a payment, redirecting the customer, handling the callback, verifying the result, and keeping up with API changes. On WooCommerce, a third-party plugin does this, with the plugin-maintenance caveats we cover in bKash payment gateway for your website. Shopify has no native bKash for Bangladesh; you would add a third-party gateway app.

On Eazifiy, bKash checkout is built into the platform. You open Settings → Payment Methods in the admin, paste your four gateway credentials, choose sandbox or live, and bKash appears as a payment option at checkout. Payments go from your customer straight to your bKash merchant account — Eazifiy never holds the money; the store records the order and its payment status.

Because bKash is part of the checkout rather than bolted on, a few things come with it:

• Advance payment on cash-on-delivery orders — require a partial bKash payment (the delivery charge, or a fixed amount) to confirm a COD order and collect the rest at the door. This is the single most effective fake-order filter available.
• A bKash extra discount for paying the full amount online, calculated server-side so the charged amount always matches.
• Delivery fee collected in advance with the product price still on COD.
• Automatic payment status on the order — no screenshot matching, and refunds recorded against the original payment.

The details are on the bKash payment page.

Common problems and what they usually mean

"The payment screen loads but every payment fails." Almost always sandbox credentials in live mode or vice versa. Check which set you pasted and which mode is selected.

"bKash approved my merchant account but checkout still does not work." You have a merchant account without gateway access. Go back to bKash and request Checkout / PGW for your website.

"Customers pay but the order stays unpaid." The callback from bKash to your store is not reaching it — on a custom site this is a developer problem; on a platform, check that the website address you gave bKash matches your live domain exactly.

"bKash asked for documents I do not have." Start with the trade licence — it is the document everything else hangs from, and courier merchant accounts will ask for it too.

Frequently asked questions

Can I keep taking bKash on my personal number while the merchant account is pending? Many sellers do, but it is against personal-account terms and it does not scale. Treat it as a bridge measured in weeks, not a plan.

Does the merchant account cost money? bKash sets merchant fees and settlement terms; they are on bKash's merchant pages and vary by account type. Check the current schedule rather than relying on a figure quoted elsewhere.

Do I need a developer to connect bKash to my store? On a custom site, yes. On Eazifiy, no — you paste the credentials into the admin panel. Eazifiy does not charge for the bKash integration itself; bKash's own fees are between you and bKash.

Can I use one merchant account for my shop counter and my website? Yes. The merchant account is the business; QR payments at the counter and gateway payments on the website both settle to it.

What about Nagad, Rocket and cards? Those are separate accounts and, for cards, a separate gateway. We cover the options in adding Nagad, Rocket and card payments.

Ready to take bKash at checkout? Every Eazifiy plan includes bKash and cash-on-delivery checkout, and the first 2 months are ৳200 a month on any plan — see pricing or the full feature list.