BNM wants more banks to join Agent Banking Programme

Another subject that is close to my heart i.e. financial inclusion. Bank Negara Malaysia has done a lot in realising the national financial inclusion agenda.

What is financial inclusion? In simple term, it means to ensure that all walk of life, regardless his/her background has easy access to financial services.

One of the measures is the implementation of agent banking, whereby banks appoint reliable agents to undertake on-site premise secured banking transactions.

Currently BSN and two commercial banks, namely Maybank and RHB are offering this facility and hopefully more and more banks will come on board.

So guys, look out for this logo when you want to do banking transactions in places where there is no physical presence of a bank branch.

Bank Negara Wants More Banks To Join Agent Banking Programme

KUALA KRAI, June 14 (Bernama) -- Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) wants more financial institutions to participate in the agent banking programme which will benefit those living in rural areas where it was difficult to enjoy banking services.

Its director of development financial and enterprise department, Kamari Zaman Juhari, said since its introduction in 2010, only three banking groups -- Malayan Banking, RHB Bank and Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN) -- had participated in the programme.

"We want to encourage more banks to join and now many of them have shown interest.

"An institution will undertake a detailed study before deciding to participate in the programme which has received an encouraging response from those living in the rural areas," he told reporters after officiating BSN's two-day community programme here today.

Also present were BSN's senior vice-president/head of community business department, Azaddin Ngah Tasir.

Kamari Zaman said at end-April this year, the banks had appointed over 4,000 agents like Pos Malaysia Bhd, petrol stations, sundry shops and telecommunication companies' agents, involving transactions of over RM760 million.

"Since the introduction of this service, over 86 per cent of the districts in the country have access to the banking services compaerd with only 46 per cent at end-2011.

He said Maybank, CIMB and Public Bank cooperated with telecommunication companies early this year to offer MyMobile service to mobile phone users.

"About 100,000 users are using the service involving RM4.2 million in transactions," he said.

Meanwhile, Azaddin said BSN has over 4,000 registered bank agents nationwide handling over 6.5 million transactions worth RM580 million

He said the registered bank agent service was an innovative service offered by BSN to help those in the rural areas which had no banking services.

-- BERNAMA

Iftar with DFE Staff Club

Setiap tahun, ini adalah acara kemestian kelab. Kalau tahun lalu ia diadakan di KGPA, kalau ini acara banyak makan ini diadakan di Hotel De Palma Ampang. The hotel claimed that it's a shariah compliant hotel. Hmmm... I reserve my comment on that. Nanti ada kena serbu pula!

Terima kasih daun keladi kepada kelab yang telah memberi subsidi sebanyak RM20, maknanya seorang cuma bayar RM48 sahaja. Alhamdulillah, tapi sebelum ada yang teriak pasal subsidi tu nanti, bukannya macam subsidi yang kerajaan selalu canang dan ungkit tu, sebab RM20 itu pun datang dari duit kutipan setiap bulan, sejak aku mula kerja di jabatan ini.

Persekitaran majlis buka puasa di De Palma Ampang adalah cozy, memandangkan ia diadakan di ballroom instead of their coffee house. Jadi, suasananya kurang lebih seperti majlis makan malam. Dekorasinya pun bersesuaian.

Makanan? It served quite a reasonable spread. Ada selera kampung, ada middle eastern, south asian dan juga oriental taste. Aneka juadah. Tapi yang aku ulang makan adalah masak lemak siput sedut. Cuma kuahnya kurang pekat. Gulai daging salainya adalah juadah yang terbaik pada malam itu. Berpadanan dengan masak lemak pucuk ubi. Macam nak makan masak asam ikan terubuk tapi nampak macam cair. Pendek kata, berbaloi juga lah berbuka di sana, ada kambing panggang tapi aku tak makan kambing. So, cannot share with you how it taste.

Ada persembahan nyanyian daripada satu grup ghazal. Ketua kumpulannya sangat expressive and annoyingly entertaining. Reminds me of Fazura dalam Pisau Cukur, annoying yang likeable! Is there such thing as that? He even menjogetkan an english song, a familiar song but I cannot recall its title.

Ada kuiz lagi dan dua orang rakan pejabat aku menang!

Satu lagi yang best berbuka di sana, pihak hotel menyediakan Imam Muda untuk mengetuai solat terawih.

Alhamdulillah, berbaloi berbuka di situ. Thanks Jun and DFE Staff Club for organising it for us. Terima kasih daun keladi.

p/s: Happy birthday Nazrol and Ija Salleh. Moga murah rezeki, berkat usia. Aamin.