50 Percent of Indians Don't Have a Simple Savings Bank Account


Bangalore: Everybody is aware of the fact that India is lacking when it comes to financial inclusions. Added to this, CRISIL Inclusive index says that, about 50 percent of the Indian bottom line districts have just three banks per 100,000 of population.

Moreover, it’s disheartening to know that there is more than 50 percent of population who just have a simple savings bank account.

To rescue this critical situation, Indian banks are coming up with new licenses that will be issued to the people. Infact, Financial inclusion has been a topic of discussion for Indian policy makers for quite some time now.

According to the study conducted by CRISIL, one out of two Indians has access to a savings bank account and one out of seven has access to bank credit.

Since he idea of improving financial sectors are still in the grass root level, the financial inclusion looks low at this point of time,

When we look at savings bank account in the country, there are about 684 million bank accounts with a population of 1.2 billion. The picture looks bleaker if one excludes western and southern India.

Crisil’s study was conducted on three parameters that is branch, deposit and credit penetration. The study was conducted in 632 districts in India; the result showed that the bottom 50 districts have just three banks per 100,000 of population and just half of 7.6 percent bank branches are all-India level.

Through the study it was clear that there were just 2 percent of total bank branches in such districts, with just 4,068 loan accounts per 100,000 of population when compared to an all-India level of 11,680 accounts.

Largest cities in India have 11 percent of the country’s bank branch while there are four districts in north India which has only one bank per district. This shows that there is inequality in the basic banking services in India.

However, it is quite pleasant to know that south India is much ahead in financial inclusion compared to the rest of the country, where it has scored 62.2 percent of financial penetration where as in all India level it stands at 40.1 percent.

The factors that lead to the lack of financial services are lack of awareness, low incomes, poverty and illiteracy, the government has taken steps to improve education levels in India.

Also Read:

India's Top 10 Mutual Funds

How to Repay and Save On Home Loans?