The Bhutanese Leading the way.
To commemorate 60th Birth Anniversary of Fourth Druk Gyalpo and as part of bank’s corporate social responsibility, Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay launched Gewog Based Banking Services and the Drinchen Ama Savings Scheme of Bhutan Development Bank (BDB) in Kabesa Gewog in Punakha on 10th December.
According to press release of BDB, the Geowg bank is to increase the accessibility of financial services without any additional costs to rural customers and introduce monthly farmers outreach banking services wherein the bank’s branch-staff visit gewog and village centers to provide financial services.
The release says that the “Geog Based Banking Services” is a technology driven field banking service where with the help of Point of Sale (POS) device the bank shall provide a range of banking services on a real time basis at the click of button which until date were provided exclusively from the branch office.
The service facility costing over Nu 30 mn is developed in technical collaboration with Tech Mahindra of Mahindra Group conglomerate, India and South Tech Ltd. BDB’s banking software vendor is from Bangladesh and it shall be provided in all the 205 gewogs. In the first phase, services such as cash deposits, loan repayments, withdrawals, balance inquiry, fund transfers and remittance will be there and in the second phase mobile phone top ups and utility bills payments shall be provided.
The release also says that the “Drinchen Ama Savings scheme” is a savings product, introduced as a tribute to all mothers for shaping household and family’s lives and also to inculcate savings habits. Drinchen Ama Savings box shall be distributed all Bhutanese households over a period of time.
According to the release both the schemes are intended to achieve the bank’s objectives of financial inclusion and access to finance to alleviate poverty and improve living standards of the Bhutanese people as envisioned the benevolent Monarchs.
It states that in order to meet diverse financial needs of the customers, the bank provide a range of credit and banking services from its 33 branch offices,6 field offices and 5 extension offices spread across the country.
The Bhutan Development Bank formerly known as Bhutan Development Finance Corporation was established on 31st January 1988 under the Royal Charter issued by His Majesty the Fourth Druk Gyalpo. The bank joined the fraternity of banking institutions in the country on 2nd March 2010 when the bank was issued a “Specialized Deposit taking” license.
