Why is Higher Institution Students Un-banked in Duhok City? Evidence from a Survey Analysis.

This paper attempts to find out why higher institution students in Duhok are not opening or having bank accounts. With the use of interview process and questionnaire, 100 students were selected from Newroz University, Dohok Polytechnic University and Dohok private technical institute in Duhok city.  It was found from this study that most of these students’ approximately 90 students of them have no bank accounts while only 10 of them have bank accounts. Moreover, this research found that trust on banks, security, bad banks infrastructure, lack of money, costs of opening bank accounts, access to bank accounts and unemployment are the main reasons for low banking interest among students in Duhok city. However, the highest reason is lack of trust on Duhok banks and lack of money due to high unemployment rate. It is suggested that banks in Duhok city should encourage students to open bank accounts by advertising the importance of banking services and offer student loans. Also, Duhok government should award scholarship to student to ease the pressure from the unemployment menace in the country. Keywords: Un-bank, Bank trust, Poverty, Banking access