Al Amin :
Palli Sanchay Bank (PSB), a specialized non-schedule bank, is working to improve the fate of rural people of the country.
Taking to The New Nation, the Bank’s Managing Director Khandaker Ataur Rahman, said the PSB, which focuses on bringing in disadvantaged people, especially women entrepreneurs under institutional financial services, has been sanctioning collateral-free loans to rural poor since its inception in 2014.
Unlike many other banks, the PSB encourages and helps underprivileged people in generating income and building savings, and eventually use their savings in providing more loans under its revolving credit scheme, he said.
The bank’s MD said the PSB gives financial and banking supports only to the members of the Village Development Association (VDA), formed by the initiative of the bank, who want to do income-generating activities under the ‘Amar Bari Amar Khamar’ project.
The loans are given for cow fattening, raising milking cows, manufacturing agro-industrial tools and spare parts, producing vegetable and spices and establishing agro-based small industries, cottage industries, fisheries and nursery, he said.
The amount of loan of the PSB depends on the investment plan of the borrowers. However, a small entrepreneur can get a loan of Tk 10,000 to Tk 50,000, medium entrepreneur over Tk 50,000 to Tk 300,000 and special entrepreneur over Tk 300,000 to Tk 100,000, according to the bank data.
Around one crore poor people have taken various types of micro-loans to be self-sufficient at a nominal interest rates ranging between 4 to 8 per cent. At the end of the fiscal year 2020-21, the debt status stood at Tk 7,876 crore, the data said
As it is a specialized non-schedule bank, there is no opportunity for the bank to collect deposits from the public. The bank collects deposits only from the members of the VDA and their families. Such deposits stood at Tk 2,769 crore in FY 2020-21, it said.
Besides, the VDA members can take benefit of the different saving products of PSB including general savings, special savings, social security savings, student savings, term deposits and rural pension scheme.
Apart from the financial support, the bank is also imparting necessary training to the VDA members to improve their skills in poultry, fisheries, livestock, nursery and agriculture.
The main activities are to encourage the members of the VDA in daily savings and to provide micro-loans and SME loans for making self-employment.
The specialty of the VDA is male-female member ratio must be 60-40 in each association. About 120,000 associations have been formed so far.
The bank has more than 11,000 employees and all are working at the field level and the number of officers is very low. The senior officer is at the highest level. Then there is a General Manager and the next position is the Managing Director. Ataur Rahaman said some 18 audit teams have been formed since his appointment and the teams have completed audit in 237 out of 490 branches so far. The rest is ongoing.
“I am trying to solve the irregularities that have come up in the audit,” he said.
“The employees of the project had not idea that the money has to be deposited in the bank immediate after collection. As a result, we collected a huge amount of such non-deposited money during the audit,” he said.
