The government estimates that DBT programmes will cumulatively save the central government ~INR 82,985 crore10 (USD 15 billion) by the year-end, 2018. With respect to education, scholarship programmes have seamlessly moved into the fold of DBT. Money is being transferred into the bank accounts of beneficiaries rather than being handed over as cheques. In-kind transfers have begun using MIS platforms for multiple functions and are now being termed DBT. The Department of Basic Education (DoBE) distributes unconditional, universal, in-kind benefits annually to school children11 between classes I–VIII. MicroSave conducted a study in Uttar Pradesh on DBT in education. We specifically looked at in-kind benefits transfers to school children. We conducted a study based on primary qualitative research and affiliated techniques. We covered the districts of Gorakhpur, Lalitpur, Lucknow, and Meerut to ensure a representative sample for the study.
Blog
Digital Credit- challenges and potential
This video gives market insights from Kenya: The number of people who have borrowed digital loans, the portfolio quality of these loans as well as the number of people negatively listed on the credit reference bureau
Overview of digital credit
This video gives an overview of the rapid growth in digital credit and focuses on the Kenyan landscape
Redeeming the pledge on gender equality
In existing products where women have been put at the centre of financial services, they have been conflated with ‘family’, leading to poor adoption. There is an urgent need to consider women as a distinct segment with specific financial services requirements. To enable this, financial services providers need to study the myriad social and behavioural impediments impacting women, and use this knowledge to design customised financial product offerings. An immediate push to bring gender-centricity as a lens and a mindset to the forefront of policy framework and product design can do wonders for financial services providers by adding a customer base of over a billion women, vastly undeserved, women.
A concise version of this paper was published as an op-ed in Mint.
What is statistical credit scoring?
The ability of Financial Institutions (FI) to effectively underwrite microenterprise loans depends on accurate assessment of the loan applicant’s ability and intent to repay. Traditionally, financial institutions use their past knowledge and experience of financing microenterprises to carry out such assessments.
Assessing the most ambitious public financial inclusion drive in history
The Department of Financial Services (DFS) in the Ministry of Finance, MicroSave, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation designed a survey to understand the coverage and quality of Bank Mitrs across a sample of SSAs; and to understand customers’ experience with PMJDY. The study was conducted in November and December 2014 across 41 districts in 9 states. A total of 2,039 BM locations and 8,789 beneficiaries were surveyed. BMs were assessed on dimensions such as availability based on the physical address and contact details provided to DFS by banks, transaction-readiness and branding. The customers were asked questions about their experience on aspects such as first bank account under PMJDY, receipt of RuPaycard and availability of Aadhaar and its linkage in PMJDY account. 69% of Bank Mitrs were physically present at the stated location, 48% were transaction ready and 11% were untraceable. 86% of PMJDY account holders reported that this was their first bank account and 18 % have received Rupay card.