Financial inclusion of citizen is key for inclusive development: RBI regional director Nikhila

AMARAVATI: Stating that the union government is giving high priority to financial inclusion of all citizens, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) regional director K Nikhila has observed that it is an inseparable part of inclusive developmental agenda.


She noted that creating awareness about banking operations and government schemes particularly among women would play a key role in financial empowerment of women. She launched the first CFL centre of the state in Amaravati on Wednesday. She had also launched nine other centres in Guntur district in virtual mode.

Addressing a meeting, Nikhila said that simplifying the KYC norms for opening accounts and recognising opening of savings accounts under the ombudsman scheme of RBI were also part of financial inclusion.

“Financial literacy has been recognised as an integral component and imperative of the financial inclusion process as it enables the people to make informed choices with regard to financial services-savings, credit, insurance, payment services and pension,” said Nikhila.

She said that commercial banks,

Regional Rural Banks

, and small finance Banks are designated as hubs of financial inclusion whereby people will have access to all financial services through the banking system. She said that RBI had recognised the challenge of reaching out to all segments of population particularly the unorganised sector and felt the need for adopting a multi stakeholder approach in spreading financial literacy.

In view of this situation, it has been decided by RBI to engage with development NGOs, civil society organisations and other resourceful academic institutions and foundations to run block level Centres for Financial Literacy (CFL). She said that the

Union Bank of India

would operate the CFLs in AP in association with an NGO, SST of Kurnool.

State Level Bankers Committee

convenor and UBI chief general manager Bramhananda Reddy said that CFLs would also create awareness as to how banks were engaging business correspondents (BCs) to handle their services including grant of debit, credit cards,

RTGS

, Neft, net banking, mobile banking and other issues. He said that CFL would take up programmes targeting the farmers, women, artisans and small merchants.

They will also focus on the online frauds and measures required for safe handling of banking operations, said Reddy. RBI senior officials M Yashoda Bai, P Ramakrishna Chowdary, Sailaja Rani, A Ravi Kumar, Chaitanya Godavari Grameena bank chairman T Kameswara Rao, Lead District Manager Edara Rambabu were also present.