This report analyses the situation of over-indebtedness in the Indonesian market and suggests recommendations/interventions avoid a crisis situation.
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Designing Beneficiary-Centric ‘Direct Benefit Transfer’ Programmes: Lessons from India – Part II
In the previous Policy Note of this series, we discussed India’s direct benefit transfer (DBT) journey with initiatives such as Aadhaar, Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC), and payment ecosystem, which shaped the pre-requisites for a digital platform and the resultant cost savings accrued from these initiatives.
In this Policy Note we detail out the “Seven Steps of DBT Programme Design” for a robust and beneficiary centric direct benefit transfer programme.
Seven steps of DBT programme design are:
1. Decision of benefit transfer mode (Cash or Inkind),
2. Beneficiary identification,
3. Beneficiary enrolment,
4. Delivery channel decision,
5. Programme communication,
6. Pilot roll out, testing and scale-up,
7. Grievance redressal mechanism
These steps provide a road-map for all governments that are preparing to digitise payments. These steps provide a road-map for all governments that are preparing to digitise payments. It is extremely important that more thought and planning goes into programme design to ensure smooth implementation and reduce teething problems. Given the huge number of welfare programs and beneficiaries, India still has a long way to go.
Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana: Behind the Numbers
Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) is a bold step by the Indian government to “fund the unfunded”, to develop the micro-enterprise sector. The scheme is based on the premise that providing institutional finance to micro/small business units will turn these entities into instruments of growth, employment generation, and development. The objective of the scheme is to develop and refinance all banks and micro-finance institutions (NBFC-MFIs) in the business of lending to micro/small business entities engaged in manufacturing, trading, and service activities.
MicroSave conducted an independent point-in-time assessment of the PMMY during the month of July 2016. This Policy Brief highlights the effectiveness, impacts and challenges of the PMMY, and assesses the capacity of MUDRA to deliver its mandate to finance those unable to get loans under the conventional system.
Designing Beneficiary-Centric ‘Direct Benefit Transfer’ Programmes: Lessons from India – Part I
The Government on January 1, 2013, initiated DBT Phase-I in 43 districts for 24 Central Sector (CS) and Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) such as NSAP (comprising old age, widow, disability, and family benefit pensions), theMahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), and Direct Benefit Transfer for LPG (DBTL). Over the last two years, DBT in India has progressed and enabled the government to reduce inefficiency and, increasingly, migrate to more effective delivery systems. The DBT umbrella in India has been much expanded and now comprises an increasing number of programmes—implemented across a wide variety of Ministries/Departments, thereby increasing in terms of the number of beneficiaries, the volume of transactions, etc.
The confluence of emerging trends in technology as well as novel experiments– made (and will make) the implementation of DBT feasible – even in a large country like India. We anticipate that over the next few years G2P transactions will cover all government to citizen services, and not just cash and in-kind transfers. On the basis of lessons learned to date from the implementation of DBT programmes in India, this Note as a first part of the two-step series explains the pre-requisites and the steps, which if followed, can help in implementation of successful government DBT programmes.
Insights from agent network accelerator surveys and opportunities for MM4P’s countries
This presentation from The Helix Institute of Digital Finance highlights important opportunities for improving Agent Networks on which successful digital financial services are still dependent on.
Learn more about:
- The Agent Network Landscape
- Market-Let Product Development
- Collaborate on Support Services
- Innovative Liquidity Management
Click on it to download the whole report
The presentation is also available on UNCDF Mobile Money for the Poor (MM4P) website.
Unleashing International Remittances – Technology Driven Solutions for Indonesia
There are 3.6 million Indonesians working across the world, a majority of them from Malaysia, Taiwan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Hong Kong. In 2015, international migrant workers remitted USD 10.5 billion to their homes in Indonesia i.e., close to 1% of the GDP. This hard earned money greatly contributes towards the welfare of dependent family members and to the overall economic development of the communities.
Despite the large amount of remittances, barriers persist at both the sending and receiving ends. From a customer’s perspective, cost remains the biggest constraint for remitting money across international boundaries. Analysis done by MicroSave suggests that the average cost of sending money to Indonesia is 4.72%. Apart from cost, time taken to transfer money and accessibility of cash-in/cash-out points are the other key issues that customers face. It takes between 15 minutes to seven days to remit funds. Furthermore, last mile accessibility (cash out agents) remains a key issue at the receiving end in Indonesia; low presence of bank branches and lower formal account ownership (only 36% Indonesians have a formal account) accentuate the problem.
Keeping the issues/barriers in mind, this policy brief analyses four models that are tailored to cater to the Indonesian market and to the needs of the migrant communities both at the sending and the receiving end. These models have the potential to stimulate economic development of migrant communities, which is one of the key objectives of the Government of Indonesia. The brief also provides key recommendations for regulators and market players to enable and operationalise the remittance business models. If implemented well, these models can lead to annual savings of USD 230 million for Indonesian migrant workers. Clearly, a win-win proposition that requires unified effort from all stakeholders.