ICICI Bank plans to cover 100 unbanked villages across the country through its mobile van banking service. Through its ‘Branch on Wheels’, the bank has reached out to unbanked villages in Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. The bank recently rolled out ‘Branch on Wheels’ initiative in Odisha where nine unbanked villages will be covered. Rajiv Sabharwal, executive director of the bank, said in the first lot, the bank aims to cover 80-100 unbanked villages for which 15-20 mobile vans will be deployed. The bank also wants to extend this initiative to 2-3 more states in the next six months depending on the response from the state administration, he added. Chief minister of Odisha Navin Patnaik complimented the bank for the effort and hoped that the initiative will go along way to provide basic banking services to the remote unbanked villages in the state. The ‘Branch on Wheels’ is a mobile branch equipped with an ATM. It offersa wide range of banking products and services such as savingsaccounts, loans, cash deposit and withdrawal, account balance enquiries, statement printing and funds transfer.
