The School Banking scheme has rapidly become quite popular among students across Bangladesh, with their deposits in the banks crossing Tk 2,300 crore till September last year.
Industry insiders said the scheme teaches students useful skills to manage money effectively. Students are getting hands-on banking experience by depositing money at banks.
At the end of September 2022, a total of Tk 2,322 crore was deposited through 3,217,414 school banking accounts at 57 scheduled banks, as per the latest data from Bangladesh Bank (BB).
However, deposits in these accounts had slightly decreased by 0.71 per cent in the July-September quarter compared to the previous quarter (April-June).
The central bank data said that the number of accounts also fell by 0.02 per cent in this quarter compared to the previous quarter.
Private bank officials said that educational institutions were closed for a long time due to the Covid-19 pandemic and that had an impact on school banking activities. But the year-on-year growth was good.
The number of school banking accounts has grown by 8.87 per cent in the September quarter of last year compared to the same quarter of 2021.
The Covid-19 vaccination programme in educational institutions has further enhanced the resumption of normal academic activities as well as school banking activities, said private bank officials.
Region-wise activities
Of the total 32,17,414 school banking accounts, 50.39 per cent were opened in rural areas and the remaining accounts were in urban areas.
Division-wise, Dhaka has the largest share of 25.66 per cent of accounts containing 43.88 per cent of the total deposits.
Chattogram follows the capital with a 20.81 per cent share of the total accounts and 23.02 per cent of the total deposits.
Banks’ performance
The private commercial banks of the country have the largest shares in the total number of school banking accounts and total deposits.
They have opened 69.42 per cent of the total accounts and hold 78.22 per cent of the overall deposits amounting to Tk 1,816 crore during the July-September quarter.
In the case of accounts opening, state-run commercial banks secured 14.91 per cent share and foreign commercial banks 4.61 per cent share.
The top 5 banks
There are five banks that have opened 55.39 per cent of the total school banking accounts.
Of them, Dutch-Bangla Bank Limited has come on top in school banking activities by opening 600,304 accounts, which is around 18.66 per cent of the total. These accounts have Tk 593 crore deposits, which is 25.56 per cent of total deposits in the sector. Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited holds the second-highest position with 15.52 per cent of the total school banking accounts.
