Banks race to tap unbanked villages
Feb. 6: There is a race by banks to meet their targets for opening banks in unbanked villages by March 31, 2011 for which there is an intermediate target. The Reserve Bank of India is closely monitoring the banking outreach for financial inclusion the governor of the RBI, Dr D Subbarao, had said in his second quarter review of the monetary policy in November 2010.
On Sunday the United Bank of India (UBI)’s chairman and managing director, Mr Bhaskar Sen, said the bank would to extend its services to 1,880 un-banked villages with a population of over 2,000 in 85 districts of 12 states and one Union Territory by March 31.
The State Bank of India also announced on Sunday that it has already appointed 310 Business Correspondents and opened 28,610 Customer Service Points(CSPs). There are over six lakh villages in India and 50 per cent of them have no banking facilities. The RBI has set a target of 73,113 unbanked villages that have been identified, for being provided with banking services by March 2012. It was earlier to be executed by March 31, 2011 but has been extended by a year. But March 31, 2011 has been retained as an intermediate target by the Reserve Bank of India.
According to Andhra Bank executive director, Mr Anil Girotra, “The bank would be expanding its network to 500 villages through bank correspondents by March 2011 and BC network to 1,144 villages by March 2012 Among the other banks Axis Bank will cover 5,500 villages for financial inclusion by March 2011 and scale it up to 12,000 villages in five years’ time; and IDBI Bank would appoint 1,400 business correspondents to provide banking services to 5,191 villages. Oriental Bank of Commerce expects to cover 300 of the 570 banks it has been allotted for financial inclusion by March 31, 2011.
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