The Bangladesh initiative may benefit uniquely from the support of the central

bank, but it is built on a principle that underpins other financial inclusion

schemes for street and working children: microfinance must incorporate
financial education to offer a sustainable way out of poverty.
McGrath says: The accounts will create a key and hopefully lasting
connection between children and the banking system.
BB estimates that 1,700 bank accounts will have been opened by the end of
November, six months into the project, but it is not the first street children
banking scheme of its kind. The Childrens Development Khazana (CDK)
opened in India in 2001 and now operates in eight countries across South Asia
with 12,410 members, teaching financial literacy to adolescents who often go
on to expand family businesses or establish their own. Rita Panicker, director
of NGO Butterflies, which founded the childrens development bank, describes
it as not a bank but a life skills programme, where child members are trained
to run the banking service for their peers, taking turns as volunteer managers
and advisers.
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McGrath and Panicker reject any claim that banking services for children
indirectly encourage child labour.
McGrath says: There are more than 7 million child workers in Bangladesh,
the majority of which are financially excluded. We are being realists with
respect to banking, and in other areas of our work continue to work hard to
keep children in school.
For once, he adds, their work is not invisible. The very existence of the
accounts is a recognition and acknowledgment by Bangladesh Bank and, by
extension, the financial system, of the importance of these childrens everyday
struggles, lives and their work.