Microfinance has long been seen by many as a panacea for fighting poverty by providing access to financial services to low-income population considered unbankable by the traditional financial system.
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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.
Microfinance has long been seen by many as a panacea for fighting poverty by providing access to financial services to low-income population considered unbankable by the traditional financial system.
Digital currencies have generated substantial curiosity over the last year, particularly post the favourable1 hearing that Bitcoin, a prominent digital currency2, received at the US Capitol hill in November 2013.
The current regulatory approach to customer protection in India can be divided into two complementary ex-ante approaches- mandated information disclosure, and financial literacy and education.
The Committee on Comprehensive Financial Services for Small Businesses and Low Income Households (CCFS) seeks the creation of an ecosystem of different types of institutions, each with their choice of specialisation such that there would be multiple partnerships between these specialists.
Continuing from an earlier post, this post highlights the CCFS recommendations around various bank and non-bank channels that will serve to deliver a ubiquitous payments network and universal access to savings.
The recently released volume on urbanisation titled “Urbanisation in India” edited by Dr. Isher Ahluwalia, Dr. Ravi Kanbur and Dr. P. K. Mohanty, contains a chapter authored by Vikram Kapur, Commissioner of Chennai, and me, dealing with the practice of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) in urban infrastructure in India.
The Committee on Comprehensive Financial Services for Small Businesses and Low Income Households (CCFS) envisions the following: By January 1, 2016 each Indian resident, above the age of 18 years, would have an individual, full-service, safe, and secure electronic bank account.
In a three-part interview series Vishnu Prasad of IFMR Finance Foundation speaks with Dr. Shlomo (Solly) Angel, adjunct professor at NYU and senior research scholar at the NYU Stern Urbanization Project, about India’s urban housing crisis, urban governance challenges in India, the enduring legacy of the Oregon experiment, Making Room Paradigm and his personal experiences with participatory planning in Bangkok.
The CCFS recommendations pertaining to national full-service banks and regional banks have been covered in our previous post. Unlike these deposit-taking institutions, the third category of institutions, namely, RBI-regulated Non-Banking Financial Companies are not involved in taking public retail deposits and are primarily focussed on credit delivery and therefore supplement the bank-led channels for credit delivery.
The RBI Committee on Comprehensive Financial Services for Small Businesses and Low-Income Households (CCFS) lays out several recommendations to strengthen the supply side with respect to credit outreach through the banking and non-banking infrastructure that is already in place.
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.
