CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGOUND
OF THE STUDY
According
to Adekanya F. (1984) Define Banking habit as the degree as which member of the
public patronize banks. The regularity with which individual and corporate
bodies in the society make use of banking faculties.
As
palne (1978), Rural banking scheme is a programme managed by the central bank
of Nigeria
in the 1970 and it aims at bringing banking facilities to the door step of
rural dwellers.
The
first approach used by the commercial bank of Nigeria was mandating the
commercial banks to open branches in the rural area, for example in 1977 the
central bank of Nigeria mandated the commercial banks to open branches in the
rural areas, for example to open 198 branches in the rural area within a period
of three years July 1977 to June 1980 unfortunately the commercial banks of
Nigeria guidelines.
To
ensure compliance the central bank of Nigeria used the power it has under
section 4 under the banking Act of 1969 tied the approval for the opening of
urban branches but all to no avail.
Promulgated
the microfinance Bank decree no 46 of 1992 which provide for the establishment
of microfinance bank.
The
microfinance banking system is owned and managed by community or a group of
community for the purpose of providing deposit, credit and other banking
facilities for the members of the community.
The
number of microfinance banks has increased greatly from 1991 to date. By the
nature, microfinance bank therefore are self sustaining financial institution
owned and managed by the community or group of people for the purpose of
providing credit facilities deposit banking and other financial services to its
members at large on the basis of their self recreation and credit worthiness.
In
Nigeria, like in many African countries successive government have implemented
various agricultural and rural credit schemes as a means to address perceived
shortage of rural credit to stimulate rural employment and productivity under
the scheme institutional resources programme efforts and government energies
were devoted, through parastatals based top button intervention interventions,
to imperial mostly supply financial development funds to rural entrepreneur and
small scale farmers ( Graham 1992, Yaron 1992).
1.2
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
In Nigeria, economy has revealed that
about 75% of the people living in rural areas has been deprived access to
banking facilities Ijera M.O (1986).
And
so far, in Nigeria,
the problem of rural under development and hence general economic stagnation of
the overall economics of the developing countries is inadequate flow of financial
resources to the rural areas as well as the channeling of the available
resources from the rural to the banking habit of the rural dwellers.
Mobilization
and the utilization of owning financial resources are the most important pre
conditions for the mordernizing the rural areas and improving the living
standard of many.
Also,
there is a total neglect of the rural community in the scheme of banking
expansion and the inadequate of banking expansion and the inadequate of banking
facilities generally. The government establishment of rural banking scheme of
diffused branch network of bank to all in part of the country the develop
banking habit among the people and could build up a banking system that could
sustain rapid contribution and balanced development of the economy.
In
Nigeria,
the rural economy encompasses a substantial propotion of the countries human
and natural resources and therefore require large amount of financial resources
too in order to develop it.
Inspite
of the effects with less than expected achievement, rural borrower still
encounter difficulties in accessing credit from formal financial institution.
It is thus necessary to provide a channel for mobilizing and investing saving
in the rural area.
Therefore,
it was due to the nature of banks in Nigeria economy as a whole coupled with
the fact that the federal military government initiated the Rural Banking
Programme (RBP) by her geographical size and population was under banked in
term of banks and banking sector is the most backward in terms of proportion of
the economic unit passing through the banking system (Stanstan 1994)
1.3
RESEARCH QUESTION
The questionnaire were administered
to the entire staff of the bank to eliminate bias in administration the
question. The staff strength of the organization understudy (OKEHO MICROFINANCE
BANK, OKEHO) was staff into consideration the organization has a staff strength
of thirty workers and the entire population were taken for the purpose.
1.4
PURPOSE OF STUDY
The purpose of the study is to throw
more light on the development of the banking habit in the country (Nigerian)
particularly in rural areas.
The rural banking scheme in Nigeria was the
federal government reaction to the realization of the problem posed by the
death of rural credit on its effort to solve the problem of rural under
development.
The purpose of rural banking scheme
is to mobilize and allocate loanable fund I the rural areas in a continuous way
and to ensure that funds are employed
productively. It is envisaged that the scheme should actively facilitate the
rapid expansion of banking facilities and services in rural areas
THE PURPOSE OF STUDY ARE AS FOLLOWS:
a. To study the contributions of rural
banking scheme towards the development of banking habit.
b. To know how people in rural areas are
responding to banking service and their understanding it.
c. To know how best rural banking scheme
in Nigeria
could be encouraged towards developing the rural banking habit with a view to
achieve its goal and objectives.
d. To know whether rural banking scheme
achieve the objective for which the micro finance banks decree No 46 of
1992 was promulgated.
1.5
DELIMINATION OF THE STUDY
This project work will be included in the
role of banking in the rural areas which includes both developed and under
developed countries because the pattern of banking in that environment is not
encouraging.
1.6
LIMITATION OF STUDY
Many factors mutated against the
research in carrying out with more desired
materials. There were such problems as constraint of the factor in
carrying out this research work. Finance is also another part of the
constraint.
Also, the report may not be able to
give full and comprehensive analysis of the activities of rural banking scheme
because of the cost of time, cost availability of appropriate accurate and
adequate information constraint as to determine the extent the research will be
carried out.
We will not however overlook the
information available in some journals, textbooks, magazines and other opinion
of eminent scholar on the study that are not easy to come by.
1.7
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study will therefore show the
responsibility of micro finance bank to bring banking facilities to the
doorstep of rural and urban areas and also promoting their banking habits.
This makes the study very important
because, it will help rural dwellers to realize the importance of banking
services.
This project will help the dwellers
of rural areas in showing possible contribution in the development of banking
habit and making the goals and objectives of the rural scheme achievable.
1.8
DEFINITIN OF TERMS
Bank is a financial that accept
deposit and grant credit by loan and overdraft to customers
Banking: This
is the business activity of banks that provides various financial services.
Rural Banking:
can be seen as the business of accepting money deposits and giving out advances
as well performing other services to customers in rural areas.
Banking Habit:
is defined as the degree at which members of the public patronizes banks.