School banking crosses Tk 2,200cr deposit

Staff Correspondent: Despite Covid-19 pandemic, school banking witnessed huge responses from the students in 2021 as deposits with the banking accounts crossed Tk 2,200 crore at the end of December 2021.
The central bank’s latest data shows that a total of Tk 2,216.9 crore was deposited with 28,25,992 school banking accounts across the country’s scheduled banks as of December, 2021.
At the end of 2020, the deposit was Tk 1,921.7 crore at 26,20,334 school banking accounts of the country’s scheduled banks.
As per the latest data, the school banking service is more popular in the cities than in the rural areas as 15,00,274 school banking accounts were opened in the cities against 13,25,718 accounts in the rural areas.
The banking is also more popular among the male students than the female students as 15,53,372 school banking accounts were opened by male students against 12,72,620 by female students.
A senior official of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) said both deposits in and number of accounts under school banking are increasing as guardians are becoming more aware.
He informed that the central bank launched the programme in November, 2010 for school students to help them save up for the future, learn financial literacy at an early age and build the habit of saving.
Mentioning the school banking as a step in the financial inclusion program, he said the program has been adopted to introduce the banking system and modern banking technology among the students of less than 18 years old.