Financial Inclusion, Awareness, and Understanding of Financial Products among People Selected Gewogs (Blocks) of Bhutan
Purna Prasad Sharma1, Shad Ahmad Khan2, Prabha Thoudam3
1Dr. Purna Prasad Sharma, Assistant Professor, Gedu College of Business Studies, Royal University of Bhutan, Bhutan.
2Dr. Shad Ahmad Khan, Assistant Professor, College of Business, University of Buraimi, Sultanate of Oman.
3Dr. Prabha Thoudam, Assistant Professor, College of Business, University of Buraimi, Sultanate of Oman.
Manuscript received on 07 September 2019 | Revised Manuscript received on 16 September 2019 | Manuscript Published on 26 October 2019 | PP: 485-494 | Volume-8 Issue-11S2 September 2019 | Retrieval Number: K108109811S219/2019©BEIESP | DOI: 10.35940/ijitee.K1081.09811S219
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© The Authors. Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering and Sciences Publication (BEIESP). This is an open-access article under the CC-BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Abstract: The financial products that are being offered by the banks in the contemporary era are significant to enhance the primary objective of the banks that is, ‘Financial Inclusion’ (FI). However, due to umpteen reasons, the banks in many countries have failed streamlining the poor and the majority of the rural folk. Bhutan is not an exception as it is in a landlocked country. The Survey finding (2013) depicted a smaller share of Bhutanese involvement in the formal financial system (48%) whereas larger percentage of them involved in informal financial system. Further, the present Governor of Royal Monetary Authority (The central bank of the country), Dasho Penjor in his discussion on the review of His Majesty’s address on 109th National day Celebration in Trongsa stated that the majority of the rural folks are unable to avail banking services extended by the formal institutions. Besides, financial services can be availed by mass only when banks and other financial institutions run some awareness programmes. There are a few literature on FI in Bhutan in general; however literature on the awareness and understanding of financial products of the people are minimal in the country. The present study, therefore, investigates the scenario of FI along with awareness and understanding of financial products of commercial banks among Bhutanese in four Gewogs (Blocks) of the country that is, Bongo, Chapcha, Darla and Samphelling. The structured questionnaire was designed and primary data from 378 respondents were collected. Further, various articles and papers published in survey findings, magazines, and journal articles are used as secondary data sources of the study. The collected data have been tabulated, analysed, and interpreted with the help of Descriptive statistics, Independent t-test and Analyses of Variance (ANOVA).
Keywords: Financial Inclusion, Financial Products, Awareness, Understanding Bhutan.
Scope of the Article: Context Awareness and Personalization