Financial Inclusion is a subject of growing interest with national governments and international institutions
Financial inclusion is a subject of growing interest with national governments and international institutions. The contemporary thinking on financial inclusion is more on helping people manage their resources in a better way and building sustained financial capabilities (Arun and Kamath, 2015). Despite evidence on the importance of financial inclusion, little is known about its underpinnings across various stakeholders and about the policies that foster inclusion in developing countries (Allen et.al, 2016). In India, a new range of initiatives have come up to meet the financial inclusion agenda. In a top-driven mandate, this has been led by the State and the Regulator in a process of “mainstreaming” the financial inclusion agenda. This is in addition to the existing organizational structures such as SHG- Bank linkage model, Grameen/NGO model, rural banks, co-operatives etc. We will study how the financially excluded households will engage with the newly incentivized providers of financial inclusion who cut across a multitude of financial actors and governmental stakeholders.
Irrespective of the massive growth of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), concerns have been raised regarding its sustainability due to the cases of duplication of accounts, account dormancy etc. Moreover, for meaningful financial inclusion, credit should support real sector activity linked to livelihoods and income generation (Rao and Anand, 2015). How are schemes like the PMMY linked to the goals of developing small and micro enterprises (SMEs) among the poor? Also a macro-prudential assessment will be made of the following trade-off between GDP growth from overcoming financial exclusion and also how socialization of credit expansion may result in asset quality deterioration for banks and systemic risks thereof.
We aim to map the divergent approaches of the financial inclusion agenda in India in a global context and examine the challenges in managing sustainable relationship between financial institutions, processes and outcomes.
