Under the no-frills account regime, the number of people holding deposit accounts in banks has increased dramatically, becoming comparable to their counterparts in emerging and even some advanced economies.
Also in terms of the use of digital payments, the progress is notable. In the last seven years of the financial inclusion drive, the number of no frills bank accounts opened reached 43.7 crore with Rs 1.46 lakh crore in deposits as of October 20, 2021.
Of these, almost two-thirds are operational in rural and semi-urban areas and more than 78% of these accounts are with public banks, 18.2% with regional rural banks and a meager 3% are opened by the private sector. banks.
During this period, the number of bank branches in rural areas increased from 33,378 in March 2010 to 55,073 in December 2020. The number of village bank outlets or banking correspondents (CB) increased from 34,174 in March 2010 to 12.4 lakh in December. 2020.
During the same period, the number of commercial bank branches per million adults increased from 13.5 to 14.7. The number of deposit accounts with banks increased from 1,536 to 2,031, the number of loan accounts increased from 154 to 267, and the number of mobile and internet banking transactions increased from 183 to 13,615 (all figures for 1 000 adults).
