School Banking: Bangladesh wins 'CYFI Award-2015'

Last year, Singapore won the same from this region. The award was officially handed over by Valerie Georgina Howarth, Baroness Howarth of Breckland, OBE, a renowned British politician and member of the House of Lords, at the 4th Annual CYFI Awards Ceremony, held at the House of Lords in London on last Thursday (December 10).

On behalf of Bangladesh Bank, Executive Director Md. Abdur Rahim received the award. CYFI is a Europe-based global network of 36 million children and youth across 125 countries that works for enhancing the financial capabilities of children and youth.

While conferring the award, Lady Howarth highly appreciated Bangladesh’s success towards embracing nearly one million school students into the formal financial system with significant deposit size. She said that despite being a developing country, Bangladesh is a pioneer in financial inclusion; the innovative multi-stakeholder approach of Bangladesh Bank has made the school banking program a huge success.

Under the broader head of Financial Inclusion, Bangladesh Bank has been promoting rapid expansion of financial services, particularly for the excluded and underserved, to implement the Honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s vision of ensuring broad based inclusive economic growth in Bangladesh.

The Government has also been fully supportive of financial inclusion strategy of the central bank. Launched in 2010 with a circular from Bangladesh Bank, school banking has emerged as one of the core components of the financial inclusion programs. Students can now open bank accounts with initial deposits of only Taka 100 (USD 1.25) with no charges/fees applicable on such accounts. More than 900 thousand such accounts have been opened so far with total deposits of around USD 90 million. Even working Street Children have also been brought into the net of formal financial system in 2014. Parents can now pay the school fees for their children throw mobile financial services.

In his immediate reaction, the BB Governor Dr. Atiur Rahman said, ‘This is another milestone achievement for Bangladesh branding her as a role model for financial inclusion'. He added, ‘I see this award as a reaffirmation of our new approach of developmental central banking, significantly contributing towards ensuring a broad based, inclusive, and poverty free society led by our honorable Prime Minister’, said a statement.