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| Discussion in Progress |
Subsequent to an interactive discussion in August 2014 on the significance of digital financial inclusion in India for bridging the poor households with the financial system where we discussed the foundational aspects of digital financial inclusion, GPPI organized a discussion on ‘Banking Every Indian’ following the recently launched Jan Dhan Yojana on March 16, 2015.
Despite various advances in financial inclusion in the last 25 years and a diverse ecosystem of providers as a result of the efforts of the regulators and the policymakers to bring banking access to this large populous country, India has much to do to achieve universal financial inclusion.
The 2014 Intermedia
Financial Inclusion Insights (FII) survey of 45,000 Indian adults found
that 47% of adults have access to a digital account and only 25% had used their
accounts in the last 90-days. Among Indian adults who live on less than $2.50
per day, only 20% have access to an account and 3% use their account for more
than basic payments.
Through this discussion, we tried
to understand the various nuances about financial inclusion, where are we today
in terms of achieving it, the Jan Dhan Yojana scheme and its status, and what
basic steps the government could take to make it achievable and meaningful.
There were 22 Indian
Parliamentarians, across the political spectrum, who attended the discussion on
the evening of a parliamentary debate on the finance bill. CGAP (Kabir) and
MicroSave (Mukesh, Manoj) presented broad perspectives on the growth of digital
financial inclusion to provoke interventions from the attending members.
