10-Taka No-frill account service: FGD experience

10-Taka No-frill account service is a widespread banking solution specially tailored to the marginal farmers of Bangladesh. Farmers (landless, share-croppers, agricultural labors, marginal ones) all across the country are the beneficiaries of this 10-Taka No-frill account service. As per BB annual report – 2016, around 8.93 million farmers had access to NFA – No-frill account.

I was a part of a FGD (focus group discussion) team to evaluate the effectiveness of these 10-Taka No-frill accounts service. Beneficiaries of 10-Taka No-frill account service who were managed through Agrani Bank’s Sarishabari Branch (Jamalpur District) represented the sampling unit. 40 randomly selected beneficiaries of 10-Taka No-frill account service were invited for participating in the FGD. Sarishabari R.D.M. Model Pilot High School was the FGD venue and the FGD was conducted on 18 February 2017. FGD findings are briefly narrated below.

10-Taka No-frill account beneficiaries had primarily got the information regarding the account from their local representatives (namely UP chairmen and block supervisor). There had not been any initiatives from the branch’s side to grow up farmers’ interest regarding on NFAs (No-frill accounts). Documentations and other chores regarding account opening were simple. NID (national identification number), certifications from the local representatives and block supervisors were required to open these account. They did not face any challenge regarding further maintenance of these No-frill accounts. These NFAs were only used once for collecting government subsidy. These accounts were used to allocate 800-taka as an agricultural subsidy. There had not been any transaction conducted through these accounts. FGD participants hardly knew about other possible usages of these NFAs like remittance collection or financial intermediation. These beneficiaries had never shown any interest to know the possible other usage of these NFAs. They never communicated with their respective block supervisors about using these NFAs for allocating other agricultural subsidies (on fertilizer, machines or seeds). A segment of the beneficiary group had other bank accounts (in Agrani Bank, Sonali Bank etc.). But the farmers were hardly aware of the financial inclusion strategies adopted by Bangladesh Bank. In a nutshell these FGD participants were financially illiterate. Even though, there had not been any transactions since the first allocation of agricultural subsidy, farmers never thought of closing these accounts. In fact they had encouraged their peers to open NFAs and they would like to get further benefits through these NFAs.

So, it was evident from these FGD sessions that 10-taka no-frill account had achieved its primary purpose – allocating agricultural subsidy to the relevant marginal farmers. But the transaction volume and transaction diversity of these NFAs are highly limited. Marginal farmer’s access to quality banking solutions may have increased, but these marginal farmers are neither aware of true potentialities of these NFAs nor there had been any organized effort to let them know. There should be structured initiatives to lift-up the financial literacy level of these marginal farmers.

Blog Writer: Hussain Ahmed Enamul Huda