Commercial banks are expanding their networks to rural and semi-urban areas to cover unbanked multitudes, many of whom hold much disposable money and do nonfarm vocations.
Officials said the scheduled banks, both private and state-owned, are spreading their wings over the grassroots in aid to government policy to enhance financial inclusion in the country by way of bringing unbanked people under the coverage of formal banking services.
As of May 2016, according to data available with the Bangladesh Bank (BB), the commercial banks have had a total of 9,433 branches opened across the country.
Of the units, 5,349 were in rural areas and 4,084 in urban centres.
A total of 1,472 branches have come up in both the areas in the last five years. In 2011, the total number of branches was 7,961: some 4,551 in rural and 3,493 in urban areas.
The commercial banks were once reluctant to take their operations to rural areas. Their business was mainly urban-based. As a result, the clients in the countryside lacked their access to banking services, sources said.Â
Talking to the FE Sunday, a high official of the BB said though there are a large number of branches of banks and microfinance institutions across the country, a great segment of the population, particularly the rural poor, had scant access to banking services.Â
"The central bank is sincerely trying to take banking service to the rural areas and increase financial inclusion for the sake of poverty reduction," he said.
He said the banks continued to enhance penetration into rural areas with the help of  their people in accordance with BB guidelines in this connection.Â
The central bank introduced the guidelines for bringing unbanked population under the banking network, the sources pointed out.
 "We've taken the initiative to bring the 'un-banked' people under banking services as part of our ongoing financial- inclusion programme," another BB official said while explaining the cardinal policy objective in tune with government's socioeconomic priorities.
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