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by Chandrasiri Nanayakkara

About 30 years back banks and banking were limited to urban elite and businessmen. For rural population it is the post office savings and later national savings bank only for savings and not for investment. Now it is different. More and more banks are penetrating rural areas with varied financial activities. They have started with rural savings for future, pawning for emergencies, loans for agriculture, capital for self-employment and household industries, fetch loans for marketing, construction loans for housing and now leasing facilities for vehicles and machinery.

It is interesting to note that in rural areas the rate of defaulting has decreased significantly and foreign remittances have increased with rural people working abroad.

We can see at least 6-7 banks operating in a rural township and in a district center the number is much more. What is the most popular place where money is transferring from one person to the other in a rural township? In other words, where is the local produces and domestic requirements exchanged between buyer and seller? It is the weekly fair or Pola.

There are two types of polas in a dominantly agricultural district. A large number of retail ones rural people come to purchase their weekly requirement of dry ration, vegetables, dry-fish and garments for the family. The others are the large wholesale cum retail ones in main townships where local produces are sold in bulk.

In the early morning the large pola is a wholesale market where farmers bring their produces and sell to traders coming from non-producing cities. The traders bring and distribute up-country vegetables and dry fish to retailers and buy the farmers' produce in bulk. When these wholesale activities are over and with little after the dawn the retail traders take over the business until sunset. They sell every item of daily needs of a rural household.

The pola is the venue to meet friends and relatives, have a change, and see new things, pleasure, entertainment and many more to visiting people with least cost. The dry and intermediate zonal districts, the polas mainly responsible for most of the economic activities and most popular place visited by a large number of buyers, sellers and consumers.

In the Kurunegala district there are 11 wholesale cum retail polas. I think that there were no studies done to estimate the amount of goods transferred and money exchanged in a major pola like Kuliyapitiya or Hettipola. It runs to millions. According to my observations the betel pola on Mondays and wholesale and retail pola on Thursdays at Kuliyapitiya are attended by thousands of buyers and sellers where exchange of a few millions of rupees probably takes place.

The table I shows the major polas and approximate number of families served by those polas to show the significant of these polas to rural society.

In those popular markets, producing farmers needs to save a part of their income, buyers may need some additional cash, encash a cheque, withdraw money and need many more financial activities which facilities a bank can provide if one is situated.

With the increasing competition among banks to attract more customers and business they use various strategies. The heavy advertising in electric and print media, competitions, additional benefits to their customers such as insurance are some business promotional activities. The banks expend more and more to modernize their branches for computerizing, air conditioning, internal decor, automated teller machines to make an existing branch more competitive to attract more customers.

But is there any other unexploited and highly potential place to attract more customers and more business? In this regard there is a vast untapped potential in major polas for banking.

I have suggested this idea to one commercial bank about four years back but it is ignored. Still I feel as a regular pola customer that the potential is increasing and for a progressive bank the idea is food for thought!

I discussed this idea with several bank officials, traders and farmers. Lot of ideas, optimistic and pessimistic, positive and negative in brief are as follows.

*Most of the polas are on Saturdays and Sundays. Normally on those two days banks are closed. Wholesale polas are operating early morning and late evenings and not within the normal banking hours.

*A lot of traders maintained that travel at night with money is risky so the idea is excellent.

*Several farmers told that in some months they have to withdraw their savings for consumption (before harvest). Hence they have to waste time or make a separate trip to the bank to withdraw money. If there is a mobile branch at the pola they can save a few hours or the extra trips and it increase working days in the field.

*A young farmer iterates that the habit of savings could be promoted if the bank is in close proximity when they get money from their sales at the pola. Otherwise they spend on unnecessary items.

*"We can expect more transactions if having a pola branch to one which does not have but needs to see the cost and benefits," one official said.

*"The power of consumption and savings are more with the foreign remittance from rural people working abroad but we have to reach them" one bank manager told. Pola is the ideal place.

*A bank operates in a pola can attract new customers without any cost and can operate a mobile unit for several unit for several polas because polas are operating in sequence.

*Another banker discouraged the idea because security is questionable and he is unaware about the technology of operation of a mobile unit with the permanent branch".

*Another told that "only limited banking activities could be done with initiation and advertising of more complicated activities".

*One is pessimistic because it is difficult to convince the top because they do not know pola economics and hence doubt considering this as viable.

*A lady officer told that she likes a pola bank because she likes to live and work in a rural area and can do her weekly shopping without additional cost.

Can any bank venture into pola banking at least on a pilot basis in a major pola and test the results. This helps in many ways to customers as well as bankers.

(The writer is former consultant for World Bank on Agricultural Development and Irrigation Development Project by GTZ in North Central Province)

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