Digital Bangladesh has ushered a new age for Bangladeshis across several sectors, and financial inclusion has been one area where we have excelled. Through strong government initiatives and policy support together with innovative private sector companies, more and more people are coming under the banking umbrella.
This has also been noticed in the first quarter of this fiscal year, the number of poor, extremely poor, or no frill account (NFA) holders, excluding the school banking, street children, and working children accounts, has increased.
However, while this is encouraging and conveys that the government's efforts to bring more people into banking is working, it does not tell the full story as during this time period, deposits in those accounts have also decreased.
Bangladesh Bank must be applauded for their efforts to ensure financial inclusion, with these no-frill accounts -- for marginalized people with an initial deposit of Tk10/50/100, requiring neither a minimum balance nor any service charge or fee and also providing relatively higher interest rates than the existing savings rates -- being among the most laudable initiatives undertaken.
However, it is vital that more is done to ensure that the ultra poor are able to save when using these accounts; our current state of inflation makes it very difficult for the marginalized community, who are already barely surviving, to focus on saving, and these are the issues that the authorities concerned have to address.
Of all the goals Bangladesh has over the next two decades, no goal is perhaps more ambitious yet necessary than becoming not just a prosperous nation, but also an equitable one. In order to ensure we succeed, we must start work from now so that we can bridge the gap that continues to widen between the rich and the poor.
