We produce blogs to discuss new research findings, ongoing projects, and even personal reflections on the research process. Our blogs are written for a variety of audiences, including other researchers, policymakers, practitioners, financial service providers, grassroots organizations, impact investors and the public. The format is simple and easy to grasp. The language is straightforward, and the tone is non-academic. Our blogs can be of varying lengths. We choose to write a blog when we don’t want to do a full- fledged study or follow a rigorous research process. Blogs may contain opinions and they can also be based on experiences. Some of our blogs may just share some observations, learnings, or challenges.
In an increasingly digitized world, Digital Financial Services (DFS) have emerged as a key tool for transacting, borrowing, saving, and investing. Policymakers and Financial Service Providers (FSPs) are keen to leverage DFS to advance financial inclusion, particularly for women from Low-Income Households (LIHs).
Consumer protection in financial services is a core component of Dvara Research’s mission, activities and its advocacy agenda. In this regard, I had the opportunity to participate at Consumers International’s Global Congress 2023, in Nairobi, Kenya, in December 2023.
There is consensus about the importance of financial inclusion. This has translated into efforts to increase the level of financial access from the financial sector firms as well as through policy initiatives. Among the financial sector initiatives, the most visible has been the growth of the FinTech platforms.
In the following sections of this blog, we discuss the unique and complex financial lives of these households to set the context for product and process designs, delve into what a savings product for not just women but Low-Income Households (LIHs) in general could look like, and highlight some of the insights from various kinds of financial service providers on the challenges and opportunities in operationalising such a savings product for this segment.
In the first blog in our trust series, we laid down the contours of trust. In this blog, we attempt to unpack what the proximate grounds for trusting Digital Financial Services or DFS may be. Trust is the most cited motivator for the adoption of digital financial services or DFS (Kajol et al., 2022). Lack […]
This blog is the first in our trust series where we study trust in digital financial services. This blog attempts to lay down the conceptual contours of trust.
Dvara Research, with the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), co-developed two privacy handbooks directed at FSPs in the insurance and banking sector. The handbooks help FSPs implement data protection in a customer-centric manner throughout the data lifecycle, including in legacy systems.
When viewed from a consumer’s perspective, these challenges manifest at different stages of their journey with a health insurance program, beginning from the decision to enrol in a program and ending at the renewal stage. While tweaks to the design of the health insurance program or moving to a more integrated model of healthcare provision may help in this blog post, we explore the role that social capital can play in circumventing some of these challenges.
This post presents design elements that providers can use to make the consent artefacts more effective for constrained users. These design recommendations emerge from the insights from an immersive behavioural field study we conducted with 60 constrained customers through a gamified simulation of an AA transaction.
This blog post summarises key takeaways from a virtual workshop we recently hosted. It was conducted against the backdrop of a study that we recently concluded titled “Can information disclosures influence life insurance purchase decisions for low-income households?”.
In all our research efforts, we strive to maintain an independent voice that speaks for the low-income household and household enterprises. Our ability to perform this function is significantly enhanced by our commitment to disseminate as a pure public good, all the intellectual capital that we create.
