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Deposits in poor’s bank accounts declined by 18.61 per cent in the second quarter ended in June 2022 compared with that in the same period of the past year.
The hard-core poor’s deposits in bank accounts stood at Tk 201.37 crore at the end of June 2022 against Tk 238.84 crore at the end of June 2021, according to the Bangladesh Bank’s quarterly report.
Under the BB’s financial inclusion programme, the marginalised people are allowed to open bank accounts with Tk 10, Tk 50 and Tk 100 as deposit.
The target people of these accounts include farmers, readymade garment workers, extreme poor, the beneficiaries of the social safety net programs.
Non-frill accounts also include the school banking accounts where students under 18 years can open bank accounts with an initial deposit of Tk 100.
The BB allows opening such accounts so that they can safely keep their money in bank accounts without any charges.
The number of bank accounts of extreme poor people declined by 4.61 per cent in a year.
Hard-core poor’s bank accounts declined to 32.61 lakh at the end of June 2022 from 34.19 lakh at the end of June 2021.
Bankers said that poor people were struggling amid rising commodity prices that might force them to withdraw savings to meet daily household expenditures.
However, the number of bank accounts with over Tk 1 crore in deposits hit 1.08 lakh at the end of June 2022.
The BB data showed that the number of bank accounts with more than Tk 1 crore in deposit in the country soared by 4,860 to 1.08 lakh at the end of June from 1.03 lakh at the end of March in 2022 as the rich continued to get richer.
As of June 2022, the cumulative deposits in bank accounts opened with Tk 10, Tk 50 and Tk 100 deposit for different purposes stood at Tk 3,476.33 crore from Tk 2,665.95 crore in June 2021.
The number of such non-frill accounts increased to 2.52 crore in June 2022 from 2.42 crore in the same month past year.
To ensure bank accounts for all adults by 2026 as per the National Financial Inclusion Strategies, the central bank in its quarterly report (April-June) on non-frill bank accounts made some recommendations.
The Bangladesh Bank has taken diverse financial literacy initiatives since 2014 to bring a large portion of financially excluded population under formal financial services, it said in the report.
The BB encourages banks to arrange open disbursement programme under the refinance schemes for Tk 10/50/100 account holders and the financial literacy campaigns are aligned to ensure ‘Access to Finance’ for this segment of people, it said.
Digital financial inclusion initiatives such as internet banking, mobile financial services, can play significant role to take the financial services to the doorsteps of the target population.
The interoperability between the no-Frill accounts and MFS accounts would bring more accessibility and flexibility for the users, the BB said in the report.
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