The microfinance programme of the Islami Bank Bangladesh Limited (IBBL) is getting huge response from the rural and urban poor and slum dwellers as the bank has already disbursed Tk 18,856.15 crore loans among them till August 31, 2017, reports BSS.

"Currently, the Rural Development Scheme (RDS) and the Urban Poor Development Scheme (UPDS) are being run through 271 branches covering 64 districts, 490 upzilas and 20,537 villages across the country along with the city corporations in Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet," an IBBL official told BSS here today.

In order to reach investment portfolio to all segments of people in the society, he said, IBBL started its RDS programme for the poor rural areas in the year 1995.

After successful operation of RDS, the senior official said, the bank introduced another microfinance scheme for the urban poor and slum dwellers in the year 2012.

"The schemes are being operated under family development approach aiming to sustainable capacity building of the beneficiaries," he added. Since 1995, the senior official said, IBBL has extended services to 1.7 million poor families through the schemes, the existing number of whom is about 1.0 million.

"The latest rate of return against RDS and UPDS is 12.50 per cent. Timely repayment is encouraged by offering a rebate of 2.5 per cent. Hence, the rate after allowing rebate becomes 10 per cent," he added.

Mentioning the RDS as a prestigious programme of IBBL, he said, the goal of RDS is expressed in its slogan "Model villages are the heart of Bangladesh, Islami Bank is for developing Model villages."