The Technology Advisory Group for Unique Projects (TAGUP), which was set up by the Ministry of Finance in June 2010 under the chairmanship of UIDAI Chairman, Nandan Nilekani, recently submitted its report to the Government of India.

The Malegam Committee’s (referred to hereinafter as the “Committee”) recommendations to increase the supervisory capacity of the RBI, to make MFI regulation consistent at the national level, to promote good corporate governance and to increase bank lending to MFIs are welcome.

Efforts to promote financial inclusion achieved momentum in the country with the RBI guidelines in January 2006, allowing appointment of non-bank Business Correspondents (BC) as agents for the delivery of financial services outside bank branches.

We appreciate the Malegam Committee’s recommendations to increase the supervisory capacity of the RBI , to make MFI regulation consistent at the national level, to promote good corporate governance, to increase bank lending to MFI’s, and to make available alternative sources of equity.

An investment banker has to develop sector-specific guidelines and methodologies to help him deal with small and disaggregated clients, and scale up low-ticket transactions.

Olympia A. De Castro from IFMR Capital gave us an insight on the correspondent banking model in Brazil that led to some interesting comparison debates with the Indian model.

On May 7th 2010, the University of Chicago and Northwestern University hosted the sixth annual Chicago Microfinance Conference.

Last week I attended a conference titled “Microfinance: Translating Research into Practice”, hosted by the Centre for Microfinance in partnership with the College of Agricultural Banking (CAB) in Pune.

Undertaking an exercise in learning, I had last month visited BISWA, an MFI based in Orissa, that apart from providing microcredit, is involved in a wide range of activities related to health, education, water, sanitation and livelihood enhancement programs.