Five Years of Researching Financial Services for the Poor – CMF Report

According to a report by Crif High Mark, microfinance loans overdue for up to 31-180 days increased from 2.1% in March 2024 to 2.7% in June 2024. While there could be several supply-side factors at play for the rise in defaults, in this blog we direct our attention to reviewing the household side of the story by assessing the changes in household balance sheets post the COVID-19 pandemic.

The objective of this policy brief is to summarise learnings from fieldwork conducted in Rajasthan and Gujarat towards (i) building evidence on the customer protection issues in the sale and servicing of the two insurance schemes and (ii) bringing to the forefront the structural issues on the supply-side that are holding back Financial Service Providers (FSPs) from offering high-quality service in the context of these two schemes.

The objective of this deck is to summarise learnings from fieldwork conducted in Rajasthan and Gujarat towards (i) building evidence on the customer protection issues in the sale and servicing of the two insurance schemes and (ii) bringing to the forefront the structural issues on the supply-side that are holding back Financial Service Providers (FSPs) from offering high-quality service in the context of these two schemes

How can finance be designed and structured for agriculture, farmers, agricultural households, agrarian communities and the larger economy so as to ensure economic equity, social well-being, and environmental sustainability?

This paper aims to document the unique characteristics of the financial lives of low-income households in India. It focuses on the intra-year fluctuations in income that are faced by these households owing to the precarity of their occupations.

For two decades, India has doubled down on the policy prescription of providing financial ‘last-mile access’ to its rural and poor citizens. Has the effort succeeded? It depends on who you ask.