Private banks lag behind PSU lenders in opening Jan Dhan account

Private sector banks are way behind their PSU peers when it comes to opening financial inclusion accounts under the Prime Minister's Jan Dhan Yojana, with just about 30 lakh in over four months.

The state-owned banks have opened 8.62 crore such accounts in the same period. The number of such accounts opened by even regional rural banks stands at 1.92 crore.

Private banks have a market share of about 20%, but their contribution in this flagship financial inclusion programme of the government is only about three%.

As per the latest Finance Ministry data, 13 private sector banks have opened 30.47 lakh Jan Dhan bank accounts as against 8.62 crore by state-owned banks as on January 7.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the financial inclusion scheme on August 28, 2014. The initial target was to open 7.5 crore such accounts, but the later it was revised upwards to 10 crore to be completed by January 26, 2015. However, this target has already been achieved.

Taking into account the regional rural banks, so far a total of 10.84 crore Jan Dhan accounts have been opened so far by all banks in the country.

Among private banks, just three of them -- HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and J&K Bank -- account for about two-third of total accounts opened by private sector lenders.

HDFC Bank has opened 7.8 lakh such accounts, followed by ICICI Bank's 6.67 lakh and Jammu and Kashmir Bank's 6.06 lakh.

Country's third largest private sector lender Axis Bank have opened 2.45 lakh accounts and Kotak Mahindra Bank has opened just 54,000 accounts.

As far as public sector banks are concerned, they have opened more than 8.62 crore Jan Dhan accounts.

Country's largest bank SBI has opened 2.15 crore accounts, followed by Punjab National Bank (61.74 lakh), Bank of Baroda (58.47 lakh), and Canara Bank (53.79 lakh).

The main features of the PMJDY scheme include Rs 5,000 overdraft facility for Aadhaar-linked accounts, RuPay Debit Card with inbuilt Rs 1 lakh accident insurance cover.

Besides, account holders under the scheme will get life insurance cover of Rs 30,000. This was additional benefit announced by the Prime Minister during the launch of the scheme.