Dabba Savings Account

Rural Indian women face significant obstacles to saving money for their families. They typically store cash in a “dabba,” the steel canister used to hold rice, because doing so is also culturally believed to bring prosperity. Unfortunately, their men take the money away.

ESAF, a small finance bank, wanted to bring banking into the women’s lives and re-created the dabba with a false bottom to allow women to safely store cash. At the regular women-only gatherings within the community, we distributed the special dabba and invited women to deposit their funds through the bank representatives in attendance. Neighborhood rice shops were the next stop in system. When women went to restock their dabba with rice, they could also withdraw funds through micro ATMs, accessible through India’s biometric system, the Aadhaar. For the first phase, we launched in eight districts in Southern India without any advertising or publicity.

Truth Well Told: By merging tradition with a smart, low-tech banking solution, the campaign got 121,670 women to open ESAF accounts and become part of the banking system.