Jointly funded by MetLife Foundation and Swisscontact, Sarathi-Progress through Financial Inclusion, which aims to bring the workers engaged in the country’s readymade garment industry, especially the women garment workers within the realm of formal banking services, has achieved milestones of 66,000 RMG worker salary accounts being opened, 64 alternate delivery channels (like ATMs, agent points, mini branches) being established and 17,000 garment workers reached through financial literacy training.
Focusing on the project’s experience – Sarathi is a 36-month (January 2018 to December 2020) Financial Inclusion project – Swisscontact Bangladesh held an online webinar recently, participated by representatives of all the stakeholders including from BGMEA, global buyers, BKMEA, RMG factories, representatives from commercial banks, etc.
It may be mentioned here that the project aims to empower apparel workers by facilitating their involvement in conducting financial transactions as account holders and clients through wage digitisation.
The main topic of discussion in the webinar was the current Financial Inclusion landscape and how it needs to be adapted, going forward, to yield the most prospects.