Microfinance Beyond Lending: Looking at Emerging Claims
This is Part 2 of a 3-part series on the recently released NCAER-MFIN report, “Assessing the Effectiveness of Regulated Small Borrowing in India”. In this blog, we turn to some of the broader claims advanced in the report regarding the wider benefits of microfinance and assess whether these claims hold up when situated in a broader empirical context.
Examining ‘Gender Gap’ in Financial Inclusion in India using the Global Findex Database 2025
This blog critically examines the concept of the “gender gap” in financial inclusion by distinguishing between unconditional differences and those that persist after controlling for socio-economic factors, using evidence from the Global Findex 2025 dataset
Paisas to Prosperity: The Long Road to Savings
In this blog, we delve further to uncover the institutional, cultural, and evolutionary factors underpinning the challenges of engendering formal savings among LIHs.
Misled and Mis-sold: Financial misbehaviour in retail banks?
We use an audit methodology where auditors ask for tax saving instruments from banks and document the disclosures made on product features at the time of sale. In private sector banks with high sales incentives, the high commission product is recommended. In public sector banks, where there are deposit mobilisation targets, fixed deposits are recommended. […]
