BENGALURU: Vijaya Bank on Saturday launched ‘100 Digital Villages’ initiative in an effort to bring residents of these villages under the formal banking system. The 100 villages were chosen from among 15 states across the country, including Karnataka. According to the bank officials, residents of these villages were not part of the formal banking system until now.
Through its initiative, the bank has now reached out to more than 2.35 lakh customers, all of whom will have access to digital banking through debit cards. Out of these, 2.1 lakh customers have seeded their Aadhaar numbers to their accounts. As many as 12,000 people have been accessing mobile wallets too. On Saturday, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who was in the city, launched the bank’s initiative. Speaking about the significance of digital banking for the country, Jaitley said that poor people not being unable to understand technology was a myth.
“Earlier, when cell phones were launched, there was scepticism that the concept would not catch on but today almost everyone owns a mobile phone,” he said, emphasising the need for tech-enabled banking. Even though India still has a long way to go before completely depending on digital banking, cash economy is cost-intensive, whereas a digital economy would incur comparatively lesser expenses, he added. The bank’s initiative was earlier launched with just five villages and has now expanded to include 100.
On the occasion, Vijaya Banka under its CSR initiative adopted 100 girl children from under privileged families and will bear their educational expenses up to postgraduation, an official statement from the bank said.