DHAKA, June 07 , 2020 (BSS) – Ayrin Sultana, mother of 13-year old Himel, had been having a difficult time managing her boy’s demand for things as he always spent money for buying many unnecessary items like the latest electronic gadgets.
Himel is an intelligent and caring boy. But he doesn’t like discussion about money. Ayrin wondered if she was too late to teach good money habits to her son and what she could do about it.
“I was worried about the habit of my son. So, I discussed the matter with many relatives. At last, a banker of the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) suggested me to open a school banking account for my son,” Ayrin said while talking to the correspondent.
As per the suggestion, she opened a school bank account at the IBBL Feni branch at around four years ago. At the initial stage, Himel didn’t show any interest to save money in the bank account. Gradually, interest was created in his mind by seeing his friends and he started to deposit money in his account.
Now he is in class ten, the savings of his account is about Taka 55,000. He has a dream to go abroad for taking higher education and will spend the saving money at that time.
Ayrin is very happy now and thanks to the government for taking such initiative for creating money saving habit among the school going children.
She informed that she opened the account not only for her son but also her two daughters. They are also depositing money in their accounts through saving tiffin money, festival gift and other sources.
Himel is very happy as he has lots of money in his bank account. He informed that many of his friends have the account and they deposit money through competition.
Talking to BSS, Bangladesh Bank (BB) Chief Spokesperson M Serajul Islam said Bangladesh Bank (BB) 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.
“School banking is one of the financial inclusion activities. The program has been adopted to introduce students, under the age of eighteen, about banking services and modern banking technology as well as to develop their saving habit,” he added.
In order to popularize the school banking activities, Serajul Islam said, banks are opening the account by receiving a minimum Taka 100 as deposit.
Besides, school banking is expanding due to providing attractive benefits, ATM or debit card payment and financial education activities, he added.
He informed that the banking is gradually getting huge responses from the students across the country as deposits with the banking accounts crossed Taka 1,600 crore at the end of January 2020.
According to the latest data of the central bank, a total of Taka 1,617.1 crore was deposited with 21,01,171 school banking accounts at the country’s scheduled banks as of January, 2020.
According to the report, the school banking service is more popular in the cities than in the rural areas as 12,42,729 school banking accounts were opened in the cities against 8,58,442 accounts in the rural areas.
The banking is more popular among the male students than the female students as 12,11,430 school banking accounts were opened by male students against 8,89,741 by female students.
Dutch-Bangla Bank, Eastern Bank, Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited, Dhaka Bank and United Commercial Bank are the five banks that pulled most of the deposits from the students.
“As per an instruction of the central bank, Islami Bank introduced school banking so that the future generation can gain knowledge on the financial system,” said Islami Bank Deputy Managing Director Abu Reza Mohd Yeahia.