User:Npatel23/Financial Inclusion

From Article:

Financial inclusion is where individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs that are delivered in a responsible and sustainable way. Financial inclusion is defined as the availability and equality of opportunities to access financial services. Those that promote financial inclusion argue that financial services can be viewed as having significant positive externalities when more people and firms participate. One of its aims is to get the unbanked and underbanked to have better access to financial services. The availability of financial services that meet the specific needs of users without discrimination is a key objective of financial inclusion. For example, In the United States this condition represents a third of the Hispanic community born in America and half the foreign Hispanic community living in the United States remain unbanked. For this example, giving financial services is key in order to grow as a society.

My Edits:

Financial inclusion is defined as the availability and equality of opportunities to access financial services. It refers to a process by which individuals and businesses gain access to appropriate, affordable, and timely financial products and services which include banking, loan, equity, and insurance products. Having more inclusive financial systems has been linked to stronger and more sustainable economic growth and development and thus achieving financial inclusion has become a priority for many countries across the globe.

Achieving financial inclusion has evolved from prioritizing connecting the unbanked and underbanked to better financial services through banks, to prioritizing finding any sustainable way to provide financial services, whether through formal banks, or via other strategies.

The barriers to financial inclusion are often described as being on the supply side from financial institutions themselves and demand side from individuals who may be seeking financial services.

From Article:

It has been estimated in 2013 that 2 billion working-age adults globally have no access to the types of formal financial services delivered by regulated financial institutions. For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa, 24% of adults have a bank account even though Africa's formal financial sector has grown in recent years.

There is some skepticism from some experts about the effectiveness of financial inclusion initiatives. Research on microfinance initiatives indicates that wide availability of credit for micro-entrepreneurs can produce informal inter-mediation, an unintended form of entrepreneurship.

My Edits:

In 2018 it was estimated that about 1.7 billion adults lacked a bank account, and among those a significant number were women and poor people in rural areas. Often those who are excluded from formal financial institutions face discrimination, or belong to vulnerable or marginalized populations. However, these figures vary significantly by country and change as interventions are put in place.

Financial Inclusion in India
The concept of financial inclusion, extending financial services to those who typically lack access, has been a target to be addressed by the Government of India since the 1950's.

New Section: The History of Financial Inclusion in India
The nationalization of banks, which occurred from the mid 1950’s to the late 1960’s, culminating in 1969 with the nationalization of 14 commercial banks by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi allowed banking facilities to be set up in previously unreached areas of the country where financial centers and support were seen as inadequate. The “branching” of banks into rural areas increased lending for agriculture and to poor and rural areas and PM Indira Gandhi spoke of it as a tactic to “accelerate development” and begin to address poverty and unemployment.

The Lead Bank Scheme followed Nationalization as a way to coordinate banks and credit institutions by districts to more comprehensively ensure that rural areas had their credit needs met. In 1975, the GOI followed this with efforts to specifically reach rural areas by establishing Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) meant to exclusively meet demand in the rural economy and the number of RRBs has significantly increased over the years. Banks are key to providing financial services, and branches of Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) in particular have increased significantly since nationalization.

From Article:

In the Indian context, the term ‘financial inclusion’ was used for the first time in April 2005 in the Annual Policy Statement presented by Y.Venugopal Reddy, the then governor, Reserve Bank of India. Later on, this concept gained ground and came to be widely used in India and abroad. While recognizing the concerns in regard to the banking practices that tend to exclude rather than attract vast sections of population, banks were urged to review their existing practices to align them with the objective of financial inclusion. The Report of the Internal Group to Examine Issues relating to Rural Credit and Microfinance (Khan Committee) in July 2005 drew strength from this announcement by Governor Y. Venugopal Reddy in the Annual Policy Statement for 2005-06 wherein he had expressed deep concern on the exclusion of vast sections of the population from the formal financial system. In the Khan Committee Report, the RBI exhorted the banks with a view to achieving greater financial inclusion to make available a basic "no-frills" banking account. Khan Committee recommendations were incorporated into the mid-term review of the policy (2005–06).

My Edits:

However, the term 'financial inclusion' wasn't used in the Indian context until April 2005 in the Annual Policy Statement presented by Y.Venugopal Reddy, the then governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), and it has since gained ground and come to be widely used in India. Reddy urged banks to review their existing practices to align them with the objective of financial inclusion and expressed concern regarding the exclusion of millions from the formal financial system.

The RBI began to spearhead efforts to expand institutional access to financial services. In conjunction with the Government of India, the RBI has been proactive in developing banking products to reach poor and rural areas of India with No-Frills Accounts (NFAs) which can be opened with zero or minimal balance, special credit cards including Kisan Credit Cards meant for farmers, and various General Purpose Credit Cards that waive the collateral requirements or have no ceiling on the loan amounts. In addition to expanding products, RBI has introduced new regulations simplifying and relaxing paperwork requirements for opening accounts and granting banks more autonomy when opening new branches.

Financial inclusion again featured later in 2005 when it was used by K.C. Chakraborthy, the chairman of Indian Bank. Mangalam, Puducherry became the first village in India where all households were provided banking facilities. Norms became less strict for people intending to open accounts with annual deposits of less than Rs. 50,000. General credit cards (GCCs) were issued to the poor and the disadvantaged with a view to help them access easy credit. In January 2006, the Reserve Bank permitted commercial banks to make use of the services of non-governmental organizations (NGOs/SHGs), micro-finance institutions, and other civil society organizations as intermediaries for providing financial and banking services. These intermediaries could be used as business facilitators or business correspondents by commercial banks. The bank asked the commercial banks in different regions to start a 100% financial inclusion campaign on a pilot basis. As a result of the campaign, states or union territories such as Puducherry, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala announced 100% financial inclusion in all their districts. The Indian Reserve Bank vision for 2020 is to open nearly 600 million new customers' accounts and service them through a variety of channels by leveraging on IT. However, illiteracy, low income savings and lack of bank branches in rural areas continue to be a roadblock to financial inclusion in many states and there is inadequate legal and financial structure.

The government of India recently announced “Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna,” a national financial inclusion mission which aims to provide bank accounts to at least 75 million people by January 26, 2015. To achieve this milestone, it's important for both service providers and policy makers to have readily available information outlining gaps in access and interactive tools that help better understand the context at the district level. MIX designed the FINclusion Lab India FI workbook to support these actors as they craft strategies to achieve these goals.

Several Startups are working towards increasing Financial Inclusion in India by organising various large unorganised sectors where payments primarily happen in Cash, instead of a bank transaction.

Recently, the government of India came up with a policy under the name "rupee exchange" to exchange higher notes with the intent of: clamping down on tax defaulters, track down corrupt officers ( by rendering valueless heavy cash stashed away secretly) and generally restoring sanity to the economic system. First off it is alarming that despite the fact that India's CRISIL index is in excess of 40% and it is reputed to be heavy on technology, over 85% of its financial transactions are cash based. While income and inequality gaps will widen anyway, it is recommended that India embraces - proposed - as a matter of policy financial inclusion. The World Bank and the IMF launched the Bali Fintech Agenda paper in October 2018, which proposes a framework on high-level fintech issues that countries should consider in their domestic policy discussions.

The Bali Fintech paper offers a high-level framework for countries to consider and to tailor fintech applications to national circumstances, and recognize that their individual approach to fintech may vary depending on the type of financial services.

In India, RBI has initiated several measures to achieve greater financial inclusion, such as facilitating no-frills accounts and GCCs for small deposits and credit. Some of these steps are:

Opening of no-frills accounts: Basic banking no-frills account is with nil or very low minimum balance as well as charges that make such accounts accessible to vast sections of the population. Banks have been advised to provide small overdrafts in such accounts.

Relaxation on know-your-customer (KYC) norms: KYC requirements for opening bank accounts were relaxed for small accounts in August 2005, thereby simplifying procedures by stipulating that introduction by an account holder who has been subjected to the full KYC drill would suffice for opening such accounts. The banks were also permitted to take any evidence as to the identity and address of the customer to their satisfaction. It has now been further relaxed to include the letters issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India containing details of name, address and Aadhaar number.

Engaging business correspondents (BCs): In January 2006, RBI permitted banks to engage business facilitators (BFs) and BCs as intermediaries for providing financial and banking services. The BC model allows banks to provide doorstep delivery of services, especially cash in-cash out transactions, thus addressing the last-mile problem. The list of eligible individuals and entities that can be engaged as BCs is being widened from time to time. With effect from September 2010, for-profit companies have also been allowed to be engaged as BCs. India map of Financial Inclusion by MIX provides more insights on this. In the grass-root level, the Business correspondents (BCs), with the help of Village Panchayat (local governing body), has set up an ecosystem of Common Service Centres (CSC). CSC is a rural electronic hub with a computer connected to the internet that provides e-governance or business services to rural citizens.

Use of technology: Recognizing that technology has the potential to address the issues of outreach and credit delivery in rural and remote areas in a viable manner, banks have been advised to make effective use of information and communications technology (ICT), to provide doorstep banking services through the BC model where the accounts can be operated by even illiterate customers by using biometrics, thus ensuring the security of transactions and enhancing confidence in the banking system.

Adoption of EBT: Banks have been advised to implement EBT by leveraging ICT-based banking through BCs to transfer social benefits electronically to the bank account of the beneficiary and deliver government benefits to the doorstep of the beneficiary, thus reducing dependence on cash and lowering transaction costs.

GCC: With a view to helping the poor and the disadvantaged with access to easy credit, banks have been asked to consider introduction of a general purpose credit card facility up to `25,000 at their rural and semi-urban branches. The objective of the scheme is to provide hassle-free credit to banks’ customers based on the assessment of cash flow without insistence on security, purpose or end use of the credit. This is in the nature of revolving credit entitling the holder to withdraw up to the limit sanctioned.

Simplified branch authorization: To address the issue of uneven spread of bank branches, in December 2009, domestic scheduled commercial banks were permitted to freely open branches in tier III to tier VI centres with a population of less than 50,000 under general permission, subject to reporting. In the north-eastern states and Sikkim, domestic scheduled commercial banks can now open branches in rural, semi-urban and urban centres without the need to take permission from RBI in each case, subject to reporting.

Opening of branches in unbanked rural centres: To further step up the opening of branches in rural areas so as to improve banking penetration and financial inclusion rapidly, the need for the opening of more bricks and mortar branches, besides the use of BCs, was felt. Accordingly, banks have been mandated in the April monetary policy statement to allocate at least 25% of the total number of branches to be opened during a year to unbanked rural centres.

Financial inclusion index
On June 25, 2013, CRISIL, India's leading credit rating and research company launched an index to measure the status of financial inclusion in India. The index- Inclusix- along with a report, was released by the Finance Minister of India, P. Chidambaram at a widely covered program at New Delhi. CRISIL Inclusix is a one-of-its-kind tool to measure the extent of inclusion in India, right down to each of the 632 districts. CRISIL Inclusix is a relative index on a scale of 0 to 100, and combines three critical parameters of basic banking services— branch penetration, deposit penetration, and credit penetration—into one metric.

The report, covering data till April 2016, highlights many hitherto unknown facets of inclusion in India. It contains regional, state-wise, and district-wise assessments of financial inclusion, and the first analysis of trends in inclusion over a three-year timeframe. Some key conclusions from the study are:


 * The all-India CRISIL Inclusix score of 58.0 is above average as of April 2016, this is a significant improvement from 35.4 in 2009.
 * Deposit penetration is the key driver of financial inclusion– the number of deposit accounts (1646 million), is almost eight times the number of credit accounts (196 million).
 * The top three states are Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Controversy
Financial inclusion in India is often closely connected to the aggressive micro credit policies that were introduced without the appropriate regulations oversight or consumer education policies. The result was consumers becoming quickly over-indebted to the point of committing suicide, lending institutions saw repayment rates collapse after politicians in one of the country's largest states called on borrowers to stop paying back their loans, threatening the existence of the entire 4 billion a year Indian microcredit industry. This crisis has often been compared to the mortgage lending crisis in the US.

The challenge for those working in the financial inclusion field has been to separate micro-credit as only one aspect of the larger financial inclusion efforts and use the Indian crisis as an example of the importance of having the appropriate regulatory and educational policy framework in place.

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced this scheme for comprehensive financial inclusion on his first Independence Day speech on 15 August 2014. The scheme was formally launched on 28 August 2014 with a target to provide 'universal access to banking facilities' starting with Basic Banking Accounts with overdraft facility of Rs.5000 after six months and RuPay Debit card with inbuilt accident insurance cover of Rs. 1 lakh and RuPay Kisan Card & in next phase, micro insurance & pension etc. will also be added. In a run up to the formal launch of this scheme, the Prime Minister personally mailed to CEOs of all banks to gear up for the gigantic task of enrolling over 7.5 crore (75 million) households and to open their accounts. In this email he categorically declared that a bank account for each household was a "national priority".

On the inauguration day of the scheme, 1.5 Crore (15 million) bank accounts were opened.