India’s largest private sector lender ICICI Bank has opened 101 ‘Gramin’ or rural branches across six states offering banking services to unbanked villages.
ICICI Bank will service its customers through a network of more than 400 rural branches and 5,000 customer service points, which will together serve more than 10,000 villages across the country.
The branches will offer basic banking services such as savings bank account, fixed and recurring deposit, remittances, Kisan Credit Card, credit cards, and tractor loans. They will also service business correspondents, the bank said.
These Gramin or rural branches, which will be opened six days a week, were inaugurated across 19 districts in the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
Gramin branch
The Gramin branch at Khatwa already has more than 150 customers and ICICI Bank has started disbursing Kisan Credit Cards and agricultural term loans to some of them. It has also promised to undertake the education expenses of five needy and meritorious girls.
In Maharashtra, the bank is also engaged in Electronic Benefit Transfers for disbursement of wages to the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme workers and the Social Security Pension beneficiaries.
With the addition of these new branches, the network of ICICI Bank in Maharashtra has grown to 504 branches.
Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor K.C. Chakrabarty, who inaugurated a branch at Khatwa village in Rajasthan, said: “While the task of bringing the 1.2 billion population within the fold of banking is indeed daunting, it is as much an opportunity for the banks. I feel that ‘brick and mortar’ branches, as delivery point for banking services, would continue to play a critical role for at least next 20 years.”
Rajiv Sabharwal, Executive Director of ICICI Bank, said: “ICICI Bank has also opened close to 2 million ‘no frill’ savings accounts this year taking the total number to around 12 million ‘no frills’ accounts.”
Saral Money Prepaid Card
The private sector bank has also launched the Saral Money Prepaid Card along with UIDAI on December 12. This card can be used to deposit or withdraw money from various customer service points using finger print authentication.
The card allows people to carry out financial transactions even without a bank account. It will be used to receive government subsidies and benefits too.