Bringing unbanked people to banking

A news item captioned 'Half of Bangladeshi adults remain unbanked' published in your esteemed daily on April 28, 2018 is indeed very disheartening. Despite commendable economic progress people of our country are still lagging behind in banking practices. As our rural economy is becoming increasingly buoyant leaving most of the farmers unbanked is unfortunate. At present the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) provides training allowance, irrigation cost, weeding cost to its clients who are progressive farmers through banks. Therefore it should not be difficult to motivate the rural farmers including the female groups to open a bank account so that they can receive such and other financial payments.
Happily the farmers are getting acquainted with banking and they are found opening bank accounts in the name of their common interest groups (CIG) or individually with the support of DAE people. Like the DAE other departments of the government should also come forward through banking or mobile banking channels to provide financial support to their target groups. Banks should also simplify their account opening formalities.

Md. Refatul Hossain Deputy Director Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) Khamarbari, Shariatpur [email protected]