Despite their significant role in availing financial services to underprivileged groups and communities, the involvement of savings banks in the microfinance’s arena is often overlooked as many are still restricted from lending and offering microcredit schemes. However, these restrictions are progressively lifted, fully or partially, allowing a few to expand the scope of their operations. The paradigm shift expanding the scope of microfinance services beyond microcredit clearly offers an important opportunity to reassess the full potential of savings banks in this rapidly changing industry. From this new perspective, it is not abusive to say that savings banks are genuine microfinance.
