Extending banking services

Banking in the context of Bangladesh, cannot be entirely divorced from the needs and principles of extending vital services to the neglected areas or extending uniform facilities in the country to meet the requirements of equity and justice. The private banks, so far, have concentrated in urban areas considering the returns from rural areas to be small. It is time for them to have a rethink in view of the very gainful experiences in terms of profits by the bank-like operations of some non-government organisations (NGOs) bodies in the rural areas. The private banks, of course, are not expected to emulate such NGOs by servicing their rural clients through intensive supervision with the support of a large number of field-level officials. That will only add to their operational costs, not justified commercial reasons in the view of the high rates of interest they have to offer on deposits and relatively lower returns on lending operations in rural areas. But there is also probably a market for the existing commercial banks in the rural areas; they can explore such opportunities to help expand their own business gainfully while responsibly filling gaps in banking services in the rural areas. Shahidul Haque Tejgaon, Dhaka