Financial Inclusion lab: Empowering fintech for India’s underserved communities

• Jul 26, 2025
• 1 min

With the Digital India initiative leveraging India Stack, fintechs have an unprecedented opportunity to design solutions that drive financial inclusion. However, MSC’s research highlights that fintechs require extensive support to innovate for low- and middle-income (LMI) segments—ensuring they deliver affordable, accessible, and diverse financial services at scale.

To bridge this gap, MSC, in partnership with IIMA Ventures, launched the Financial Inclusion Lab in India. The Lab enables fintechs to tap into the vast market opportunity while addressing systemic financial inclusion challenges through tailored support and collaboration with key ecosystem players.

MSC undertook the following exercises for this program:

• We defined program objectives, structured the accelerator framework, and established governance through advisory and steering committees.
• We curated startup cohorts, facilitated mentorship with industry leaders, and provided hands-on support in market research, product planning, and testing for market fit.
• We enabled strategic partnerships, offered technical assistance in business strategy and UI/UX, and helped startups refine business models to secure growth capital.

We incubated 49 startups, impacting over 45 million low- and middle-income customers. With our support, these startups have raised over USD 250 million in funding. Spanning fintech, skill-tech, and agtech, they collaborate with financial institutions to reshape India’s financial inclusion landscape.