Source: CCTV.com

01-24-2008 09:19

The Central Bank says bank card services for migrant workers have been expanded to cover 14 provinces and regions.

The Central Bank says bank card services for migrant workers have been expanded to cover 14 provinces and regions.

A central bank official said the special service expanded to two more provinces, namely Anhui and Hubei, in 2007. A total of 14 provinces and regions, which are major exporters of migrant workers, are involved in the project now.

In 2007, more than 41 billion transactions were undertaken and more than 2.2 billion yuan was withdrawn under the plan.

Ouyang Weimin, Director of Payment System Department of PBOC said "The arrangement is a step forward for rural financial services and our national payments system. There are several things for us to do next, including introducing the Postal Savings Bank to the system to increase competition and exploring the possibility of using bank cards as a means to pay migrant workers. That will effectively prevent payment defaults by employers."

The pilot service was launched in Guizhou in 2005. The system enables migrant workers to deposit money in accounts in the cities where they work and withdraw money from branches of the rural credit cooperatives near their homes.

China has 100 million rural migrant workers, who bring back hundreds of billions of yuan back to their homes every year. But an inadequate rural remittance system has resulted in many of them being forced to carry cash on their journey home.

 

Editor:Xiong Qu