In the words of NABARD, “internal savings mobilized by its members is the core of the SHG”. Banks size their loans to SHGs as a multiple of the savings accumulated. Strangely though, it is not routine for banks to verify SHG balance sheets before lending. Few SHGs try to balance their books, and even fewer have provisions for audits. In the SHG-bank linkage model, the size of bank loans is determined by the size of the SHG corpus, more than by any other single factor. As a result, SHGs face very strong systemic incentives to neglect errors that overstate their collective savings or understate losses.

This BN is to accentuate the need to incorporate usability aspect in designs of various payment portals and user interfaces. Here many principles of usable design are also touched upon.

The blog focuses on “Orality” which refers to the modes of thinking, speaking and managing information in societies where technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most people.

At 6:30 a.m.,in a busy wholesale vegetable market on the outskirts of Varanasi, Shanti Devi is haggling with the wholesale vendor of cauliflower. The price is negotiated at ₹300 a sack. Shanti takes out two ₹500 currency notes from her batua (cloth purse) and hands it to the vendor for two sacks. The vendor hands […]

This note summarises some of the major challenges that the BC model faces and how these challenges can be overcome by adopting client centric approach.

This Briefing Notes examines the challenges of retailing to illiterate people, and some of the opportunities ahead.

This note summarises the findings of a 3-month project by MicroSave India to clarify prospects for a sound business model for Banking Correspondent operators under the current regulations.

This note provides an overview of the village financial systems in Northeast India, highlighting the flexibility and the multiple needs met by these Accumulating Savings and Credit Associations (ASCA).