Kamruzzman Bablu :
The number of Tk 10 bank account holders has been increasing rapidly since a special initiative was taken by the Bangladesh Bank (BB) in this regard in January this year.
Sources said, the BB has ordered all scheduled financial institutions to assist the account holders by relaxing their rules on lending and recovery of money.
Currently, the Tk 10 account holders include landless farmers, micro-businessmen, natural disaster-affected people and some others who are getting the government’s refinancing loans at easy terms and conditions.
In January, 2010, the central bank has initially created the scope for the farmers and ordered different state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) and specialized banks to allow them to open saving accounts at Tk 10 in a move to help the root-level and marginal farmers, landless people and disaster victims.
According to BB sources, saving accounts of more than 1 crore 61 lakh and 27 thousand financially weak people have been opened in different banks and the amount of the account deposits in those banks is over Tk 1000 crore (till June, 2015). Of the total accounts, around 55 per cent are of the farmers.
At the initial stage of the Tk10 account programme, the financially weak people only opened deposit accounts, but they didn’t utilize the accounts. To make the programme dynamic the BB raised a subsidiary fund to 200 crore and in January this year, it had directed all scheduled financial institutions to assist the account holders by relaxing rules on lending and its recovery.
The central bank also asked the scheduled banks to design easy and flexible installments against recovery from the borrowers who opened their bank accounts only with Tk 10. It said banks can design installments under their own jurisdictions to support the marginal farmers, micro-businessmen and disaster-affected people so that they can get enough time in proper utilization of the refinancing loans to suit their purposes.
After the directive, the account holders have started utilizing the Tk 10 accounts increasingly. More than 26,000 account holders have already got loans from the banks, according to the latest BB data.
As the account holders have started utilizing the accounts, the concerned banks are also being interested in maintaining the accounts, sources said.
