Nahidul Islam

Bank Asia Agent Banking

The formal banking sector in the country has lead to a number of alternatives to expand the outreach and bring the marginalized population under banking umbrella. Despite of this great effort, around 62 per cent people lack access to the formal financial service. To bring this large number of people under the coverage of the formal financial sector, Bank Asia has evolved with a breakthrough idea devising some technological innovation with the most convenient means namely Agent Banking with a vision to offer banking account for every citizen of the country. Agent banking is comparatively a new idea that can help the formal banking sector reach out to the marginalized people of the society through their agents. From inception, Bank Asia looks beyond short-term quantitative gains and concentrates on issues that make the Bank a socially responsible institution contributing significantly to the socio-economic development of the country and also extending quality service and tailor made products to meet the needs of the people of all walks of life. Agent banking has been a revolutionary inclusion in the financial system as the agents provide services like cash deposits, withdrawals, remittance disbursement, small value loan disbursement and recovery of loans, and cash payments under the government's social safety net programmes and money transfer. The list is not limited to these only, because the number of services provided by the agent bankers is increasing with the passage of time along with a number of technological innovations.