XIGAZE, Tibet, April 28 (Xinhua) -- The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) plans outpost in 5,200 villages of the Tibetan Autonomous regions to help farmers and herdsmen access financial services in their villages.
Migma Wangdu, chief of the ABC's Tibet office said on Monday that everything would be in place by the end of 2015, benefiting more than two million farmers and herders.
This year, nearly 700 terminals will be established, especially in agricultural and pastoral areas, he said.
As most Tibetans live in remote villages, banks are out of their reach. They have to travel a long distances whenever they need to withdraw or deposit cash.
Kadron, a herder from Saga County, was one of the first to try the new services. Instead of traveling the 30 kilometers to Saga Town, she visited a convenience store near her home, swiped her debit card on a POS machine and the shopkeeper gave her 1,000 yuan in cash.
"Traveling is not only time consuming but expensive. This is much more better. It only takes a few minutes to have our money in our hand," she said.
ABC began installing these various kinds of terminals in Xigaze, Nyingchi and Shannan in 2011 as a pilot project to help distribute subsidies to farmers and herdsmen. At that time, farmers and herders who qualified for the subsidies opened accounts with the bank. By the end of 2013, 9.79 million yuan flowed through more than 1,400 such terminals.
Migma Wangdu said the bank had seen agricultural loans surge to 11.9 billion yuan last year, breaking the 10-billion-yuan mark for the first time.