Staff Reporter, Dhaka : Half a million women in Bangladesh now bank under a single, purpose-driven proposition. As it marks its ninth anniversary, BRAC Bank's flagship women's banking proposition, TARA, has evolved into a comprehensive, two-wing ecosystem that today accounts for around 25% of the
country retail banking deposit portfolio held by women.

Launched on May 4, 2017, TARA was built to meet women where they are in their financial journeys. The proposition rests on two complementary pillars — TARA Retail and TARA SME — that together support women from opening their first bank account to running and scaling their own enterprises. What began as an inclusive banking initiative has grown into a trusted partner for thousands of women across the country.

TARA; Retail: Banking designed around a woman financial life TARA Retail serves women across all eight divisions of Bangladesh — from salaried professionals to homemakers, students and first-time savers to senior
citizens. Over 350,000 of them are retail customers holding more than BDT 14,000 crore in deposits.
Over nine years, BRAC Bank & TARA; proposition has multiplied its retail customer base more than 80 times and its deposits more than 60 times — the trajectory of a proposition that began as a segment and is now an ecosystem.
The Homemaker Account has removed the income-proof barrier that long excluded women managing households without formal income, with 98% of new customers onboarded digitally through eKYC. The TARA Virtual Savings
Account, with its virtual debit card, extended the proposition to women who prefer to bank entirely online.

Beyond products, the bank marks meaningful occasions with its women customers — Mothers Day, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, International Womens Day — as opportunities to offer something of genuine value. The
Mothers Day campaign celebrates the financial bond between mothers and Special Release children through joint accounts and nominee linkages; Breast Cancer Awareness Month brings hospital-partnered screenings and a
platform to raise awareness.

The TARA Ambassador Training programme, which equipped 120 frontline staff in 2025 with gender-specific service techniques, addresses how women experience banking when they walk into a branch.
TARA SME: Capital and capacity building for the woman entrepreneur TARA SME serves over 128,000 entrepreneurs, with a loan portfolio exceeding BDT 2,600 crore and deposits of over BDT 2,800 crore. The wing recorded 17% asset growth and 72% deposit growth in the most recent year — while holding its non-performing loan ratio to 1.14%. The combination of scale, growth, and credit discipline points to structured lending to women as among the most resilient credit propositions a bank can build.

From financing to market access, business knowledge, digital fluency, and professional networks — the segment works to close the gaps a woman entrepreneur in Bangladesh navigates.
TARA Uddokta Mela has hosted four events with over 300 participating entrepreneurs, creating market access at scale. Uddokta 101, now in its 19th cohort, has trained over 500 women entrepreneurs in business management,
digital marketing, taxation, and market linkage. Amrai;TARA' has reached 1,200 women entrepreneurs across 33 districts. Uddog;TARA reaches over 1,000 women entrepreneurs annually through market enlistment and digital training.
The WSME Branch Training programme — running through 191 branches across 64 districts — trains more than 2,000 women entrepreneurs each year on financial literacy and documentation.
More than 2,000 women entrepreneurs have also received a free one-year ERP subscription that allows them to track their business transactions digitally — a significant step in business formalisation.
A globally recognised model
Among more than 81 financial institutions worldwide that comprise the
Financial Alliance for Women — a New York-based global network championing
the female economy across 135 countries — BRAC Bank stands as the only
Bangladeshi bank to receive 7 awards across different categories.

Over the years, TARA has earned multiple international accolades from the Financial Alliance for Women, including the Womens Market Champion Engagement Asia Award in 2017, 2018, and 2019; the Access to Finance Champion award for four consecutive years through 2020;
and most recently, the Gender Data Champion award at the Champions of the Female Economy Awards 2025 in Kampala — for using comprehensive gender-segregated data to drive actionable insights for women's financial inclusion in Bangladesh.
TARA has also been honoured at the Global SME Finance Awards — organised by
the IFC and the SME Finance Forum under the World Bank Group. In 2024, BRAC
Bank received Platinum awards for Product Innovation of the Year — Best
Commercial Bank in both the Global and Asia categories.
Together, these recognitions mark TARA as a Bangladeshi banking model with
global resonance.
"TARA was built on the conviction that women are not a niche to be served, but a
market to be served well," said Tareq Refat Ullah Khan, Managing Director and
CEO of BRAC Bank. "Nine years on, the trajectory of the proposition and what it
has meant for hundreds of thousands of women across Bangladesh affirms that
conviction. Our work is not finished. It is, in many ways, just beginning."