Around 9,000 new women entrepreneurs across the country will come under banking services in the year 2015.
Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman came up with the disclosure while attending a conference of the financial sector’s officers who are involved with the women entrepreneurship development programme.
The conference, which was organised by the central bank, was held at Bangladesh Bank Training Academy (BBTA) in the capital with the governor in the chair.
Expressing his dissatisfaction over the progress of new women entrepreneurs’ selection, the governor said, “Only a total of 1,014 new entrepreneurs are selected by 64 banks till middle of the year, which is regrettable.”
He asked the financial institutions to be more pro-active in this regard as he hoped that 9,000 bank branches would select at least 27,000 new women entrepreneurs across the country.
Noted that, on April 9 this year Bangladesh Bank issued a circular asking every branch of the banks and non-banking financial institutions to finance at least a woman entrepreneur each year.
According to the circular, all the bank branches have to find out at least three new women entrepreneurs, who did not take any loan before from any bank or financial institutions.
Later, the selected women entrepreneurs will be trained for their capacity building on business and banking activities, reads the notice.
“Of the three trained entrepreneurs, one will be provided with micro-credit.”
As per the circular, banks have to select 27,000 women entrepreneurs from across the country through 9,000 branches by December this year.
But, only some 1,014 entrepreneurs were selected during the last four months since the issuance of the circular.
BB Governor, however, stated that the rate of SME loans, out of the total loans, has improved to 25% from 19% in the last six years.
The loans of Tk886 crore were disbursed among the women entrepreneurs during the first three months of the year 2015, said SK Sur Chowdhury, deputy governor of Bangladesh Bank.
The total loans of Tk14,254 crore were disbursed among the women entrepreneurs since 2010, he added.
