Independent Research and Policy Advocacy

Publications

Blogs

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.

Our Work

October 19, 2023 | Dvara Research

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.

August 24, 2023 | Dvara Research

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.

By Beni Chugh, Srikara Prasad, The Data Security Council of India
May 29, 2023 | Dvara Research

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.

May 15, 2023 | Dvara Research

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.

By Srikara Prasad, Beni Chugh, Nishan Gantayat, Anushka Ashok
May 8, 2023 | Dvara Research

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?”.

April 13, 2023 | Dvara Research

In this blog, we propose a framework for evaluating agent success through a customer protection lens; this can potentially be deployed as a tool to determine agent success while also allowing stakeholders to identify context-specific levers to improve outcomes for the customer.

April 12, 2023 | Dvara Research

In a recent study to evaluate the effectiveness of consumer awareness campaigns relating to United Payment Interface(UPI) frauds, Dvara Research interviewed ~85 low-income, new-to-UPI users from metro cities and small towns.

By Shreya R
April 11, 2023 | Dvara Research

In this blog, we focus on the supply side of the equation, exploring the literature detailing the issues CICO agents face in offering uninterrupted CICO services. Agents who provide CICO services often encounter significant obstacles that hinder their capacity to assist customers effectively.

By Natasha D’cruze
March 29, 2023 | Dvara Research

In this blog post, we collate evidence of the various reasons that prevent the BC network from offering access to reliable CICO services all over the country. We rely on a mix of evidence in the form of qualitative case studies, survey results, and secondary sources.

December 23, 2022 | Dvara Research

In this post, we present our findings from our literature review based on which we conducted the behavioural study.

By Beni Chugh, Srikara Prasad, Nishan Gantayat, Anushka Ashok