Financial Inclusion And Micro-finance Initiatives:

Bank has taken up Financial Inclusion in a multi - pronged approach under which the bank has initiated the following steps.

• Brought 1639 villages across the country under Total Financial inclusion under one village under one Rural/Semi urban branch- programme.
• Opened 1.74 Lakhs no frill Accounts during the current financial year.
• Covered 19.04 lac persons under Financial inclusion
• Achieved Total Financial inclusion in all Twenty six  lead districts, spread over five states, namely Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
• Bank is the SLBC convener of Kerala State. The State has been declared as Total Financially included on 24.12.2007.
• Bank has issued 1.49 lakhs General Credit Cards  since inception.
• Bank has so far formed 2.89 lakh SHGs and credit linked 2.43 lakh SHGs since inception.
• Bank has so far formed 1085 farmers clubs.
• Bank has started financial Literacy and Credit Counseling Centres (FLCCs) in three Lead Districts, namely Chitradurga, Kolar and Chikkaballapura in Karnatak state.
• Bank has brought out two comic books in Kannada and English, namely "Money" and "Savings"  for financial education of the  people.
• Bank has provided 25 vehicles in 25 potential districts to facilitate the branches to reach the rural poor and the excluded families by using the vehicle. The vehicle is called 'Canara Gramina Vikas Vahini'
• Bank has also devised various products for financial inclusion, namely:

• General credit Card Scheme.
• Revised DIR scheme.
• Self Help Group(SHG) finance.
• Joint Liability Groups of Tenant farmers.
• Krishi Mitra Card Scheme.
• Micro Credit Groups (MCG).
• Debt swapping scheme for farmers from non institutional sources.
• Debt swapping scheme for urban poor from non institutional sources.

OTHER INITIATIVES :

• Bank has adopted the Business Facilitator Model and Business Correspondent Model for extending the services in rural areas and  deepening of financial inclusion in the unbanked areas.
• Bank has piloted  Smart card Technology in two villages near Bangalore for financial inclusion.
• Bank has a MOU with Government of Karnataka for implementation of Smart Card Technology for payment of NREGP Wages and Social Security Pension in three districts namely, Bellary, Gulbarga and Chitradurga.
• Bank has installed Bio Metric Voice enabled ATM in Nine Semi urban locations all over the country.
• Bank has also launched Bio metric, Voice enabled Mobile ATM in Bangalore, in which even the illiterate customers and the Smart Card holders can withdraw money from their accounts.
• Canara Bank  Training Institute for Micro finance, Sonnahallipura,  was set up in 1993, is a unique institute .  It is engaged in training SHGs and promoting the micro finance concept.  The institute has so are trained 10472 candidates.