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Gender-Intelligent banking is the key to unlock Kenya’s untapped market

Posted on by harshita

Christine is a market vendor in Machakos in Kenya, with 17 years of experience. She does not have a formal bank account but uses informal digital financial services (DFS) to save, borrow, and transact. She borrows weekly for stock, school fees, or medical emergencies, but high fees, unclear terms, and limited knowledge of loan products put her at risk.

Eunice, a fishmonger at Apida Beach in Homa Bay County, Kenya, often turns to local lenders known as “Maasai” for quick loans. Informal lenders charge usurious high rates, as for every KES 1,000 (USD 7.70) borrowed; the borrowers pay KES 100 (USD 0.77) daily until the original amount is repaid. Even a small loan of KES 10,000 (USD 77) carries an effective annual interest rate of more than 360%, which affects Eunice’s already tight margins. This interest rate traps many women like her in cycles of debt, which makes it difficult for them to grow their businesses or achieve financial stability.

East Africa’s mobile money revolution has turned financial inclusion into a global success story. Yet, for these women, real inclusion remains out of reach. This gap has shifted from access to usage, depth, and value. For financial service providers, it is about opportunity.

The mobile money revolution in East Africa has dramatically reduced the gender gap in financial inclusion. The gender gap in financial access in the region narrowed from 12% in 2006 to 4% in 2024, fueled by enabling policies, mobile penetration, and telecom innovation. However, access is just the first step. Usage is distinct from access and indicates the actual frequency of activity and uptake of financial services.

In Kenya, a gender gap of nearly 11% persists in usage, with a 11% gap between urban and rural women. Kenya’s of women rely more on informal channels, which reflects persistent gaps in meaningful access to formal banking and its use.

This gap in usage offers a glimpse into the daily financial lives of women. A study by MSC reveals that 60% of women rely on informal DFS, table banking, chamas, and Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs for credit. They often choose these informal options over formal institutions, such as microfinance institutions (MFIs) and banks. Such informal sources have been crucial for access, but their unregulated nature and limited financial literacy leave women exposed, and the products rarely meet their diverse financial needs.

For women, such as Christine and Eunice, limited access to fair, flexible formal finance pushes them toward high-cost and predatory solutions. This pattern is widespread across Kenya, particularly among young women, who continue to rely on chamas, local moneylenders, and social networks. In contrast, young men are more likely to use formal accounts, savings, and credit.

Yet, when women access formal or digital credit, the design and behavior of lenders often widen, rather than reduce, the gender gap. MSC’s work in East Africa shows that women tend to receive smaller loans, shorter tenures, and higher interest rates, as they are often perceived as higher-risk borrowers. Women remain the largest underserved segment in financial services, which represents a persistent gap and a clear growth opportunity.

These gaps reflect a deeper issue that financial products are largely designed with a gender-neutral lens, which overlooks women’s realities. Many assume predictable, regular cash flows, but women often earn irregular, seasonal, or daily incomes. Onboarding requires documentation or collateral that women may not control, while delivery channels assume time and mobility that household and caregiving responsibilities frequently limit. Automated credit scoring typically ignores chama records, informal savings, and other community-based financial behaviors.

For women like Christine and Eunice, these gaps are real. In Machakos, women can access Fuliza, M-Shwari, the Women enterprise fund, or moneylenders, but these options often have low ceilings, rigid tenors, and interest rates up to 40%. Instead of profit reinvestments, women spend most of their earnings on repayments. These patterns are common across Kenya, especially among young women, which shows how structural barriers and product design limit access to meaningful financial services.

Financial institutions (FIs) must change their approach to service women user segments that seize this opportunity. Gender-intelligent banking (GIB) is a transformative approach that recognizes and addresses the unique realities and barriers of each customer, and creates solutions designed for their needs. GIB is a systematic approach and offers a clear, operational way for institutions to embed women customer segments-based business across strategy, products, operations, and governance, which turns intent into practice.

Women represent a gap and a growth opportunity in financial services. The closure of the gap in gender usage represents smart business. Women demonstrate stronger repayment discipline, consistent savings, and influence over household finances, which makes them a high-value, loyal customer base. Expanded offerings and increased usage among underserved women could generate an estimated KES 38.5 billion (USD 352 million) in annual revenue. Young women alone comprise more than 10% of Kenya’s population, which represents a demographic with vast untapped potential.

Tyme Bank in South Africa shows components of this approach. Launched in 2019, the GIB approach reached 10 million customers in six years, with 51% of them being women. The bank combines digital banking with accessible cash-in and cash-out (CICO) agents, many of which are run by female “friendly ambassadors.” It offers pay-as-you-go products, goal-based savings, and gender-intentional credit scoring. Tyme Bank became Africa’s first profitable digital bank. This bank holds nearly ZAR 7 billion (USD 403 million) in deposits and outperforms many traditional banks.

In Nigeria, Access Bank shows the power of gender-intelligent strategies through its W initiative and W power loan, which target women-led businesses and combine tailored financial products. These initiatives are supported by W community networks, mentorship, and W academy training, and redesigned delivery channels with internal gender inclusion through the Access Women Network. These efforts, combined with a focus on using gender data analytics and inclusive leadership, have driven a 58% increase in lending to women-led MSMEs within three years. This increase reflects that women now comprise 32% of its customer base, 40% of its loan portfolio, and 41% of its workforce.

In Kenya and Uganda, FIs are beginning to adopt GIB to serve women microentrepreneurs better. Based on MSC’s work and recent GIB training, such as loan limits, unclear rejections, and products that do not fit their needs. These institutions introduce multiple solutions. They experiment with alternative collateral and data sources, such as mobile money activity and chama histories. These alternatives simplify onboarding, align repayment schedules with women’s business cycles. It also embeds financial literacy into the lending journey and enhances outreach by connecting staff directly with women in markets and communities, rather than through branches alone.

As a result, gender-intelligent practices enable a lending ecosystem that reduces debt cycles, strengthens trust, and empowers women as high-potential clients. These practices enable the businesses of these clients to thrive when financial products align with their realities.

These examples show the potential of gender-intelligent banking. However, most efforts remain underused across the sector, which focuses on isolated elements, a single product, campaign, or channel tweak. Early success remains fragmented and fails to scale without gender-intelligent practices and policies embedded across the core of the institution. When institutionalized, gender intelligence allows FIs to diversify portfolios, expand market share, and unlock historically underserved markets. These practices support the future of smart, strategic, and sustainable finance.

AI pre-summit 2026: People, planet, and progress shape Indonesia–India cooperation toward ethical AI and a safer digital future

Posted on by harshita

21st January 2026, Jakarta: The official pre-summit event of the AI Impact Summit 2026, titled “People, Planet, Progress: The India–Indonesia Dialogue on Inclusive AI,” convened in Jakarta. The event was the result of a collaborative effort by MSC (MicroSave Consulting), the Embassy of India in Jakarta, the India Indonesia Chamber of Commerce (IndCham), and India’s Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP) under the NITI Aayog. 

The event brought together several participants, such as senior government officials, industry leaders, global development partners, and technology experts from both nations, to deepen cooperation on responsible, human-centric, and ethically governed artificial intelligence systems. This dialogue laid the foundation for the global summit in New Delhi. 

The dialogue highlighted strong alignment between India and Indonesia’s national artificial intelligence (AI) priorities. India emphasizes responsible innovation, alongside multilingual and accessible AI technologies through the people, planet, and progress framework, which prioritizes the integration of these tools with digital public infrastructure to deliver equitable access at scale.  

Indonesia’s National AI Strategy (2020–2045) and its AI ethics framework highlight trust, transparency, talent development, and accountability to integrate AI across key national priority sectors. These sectors include health, governance, education, food security, and mobility. Both nations recognize AI as a transformative enabler to strengthen public service delivery, expand economic opportunity, and enhance resilience for women, informal workers, as well as micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs). 

In his opening remarks, the Ambassador of India to Indonesia, Sandeep Chakravorty, emphasized that AI plays a strategic role in advancing social good, including improving public services, expanding financial inclusion, and strengthening needs-based social protection. 

“This dialogue is not only about technology, but also about concrete steps to build an inclusive and sustainable AI ecosystem ahead of the India–AI Impacts Summit 2026 in New Delhi,” he said. While India can share its human expertise and technological advancements in digital space, Indonesia can support it with its network capacities.  

In the same vein, Vikram Sinha, President Director & CEO of Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison, underscored the importance of cross-industry collaboration as a key enabler for translating AI policy visions into tangible economic impact. He views AI system interoperability, Indonesia–India business partnerships, and the strengthening of startup and MSME ecosystems as critical foundations to ensure that AI development goes beyond technological innovation and drives inclusive, efficient, and competitive economic growth, with human learning being in the lead, not just in the loop. 

Meanwhile, the Vice Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs (KOMDIGI), Nezar Patria, highlighted that the partnership between Indonesia and India presents significant opportunities for the development of artificial intelligence oriented toward the public interest. 

“Digital economic growth in both countries presents a strategic opportunity to harness AI in a safe, trustworthy, and human-centered manner to address public challenges, ranging from financial inclusion to climate resilience,” he said. 

He added that strengthening governance frameworks and investing in foundational AI infrastructure are key to ensuring that AI innovation develops inclusively and delivers broad-based benefits to society. He highlighted the scope of closer cooperation in this area exists in the MoU signed between India and Indonesia during Prabowo’s visit to India in early 2025 for which he looks forward to his visit to Delhi for the upcoming summit.  

Anna Roy, Programme Director and Mission Director at the Women Entrepreneurship Platform (WEP), highlighted how India seeks to empower women-led innovation in AI. She noted that inclusive AI ecosystems must ensure equitable access to skills, tools, and opportunities for women and young innovators across the region. 

The event also featured strategic panel discussions with policymakers, private sector innovators, philanthropic institutions, and multilateral development organizations to exchange perspectives on inclusive AI. The first panel explored how South–South collaboration can strengthen AI innovation ecosystems through interoperable data frameworks, digital public goods, and deeper research–industry linkages. The second panel examined AI’s potential to empower the workforce and MSMEs, which highlights the integration of AI with reskilling pathways, digital inclusion strategies, and social protection systems.  

In support of this, Andianto Haryoko, Director of Infrastructure, Digital Ecosystem, and Digital Security at the Ministry of National Development Planning (Bappenas), emphasized that AI and digital transformation are key enablers of Indonesia’s medium- and long-term development agendas. She noted that “AI must support our economic transformation and strengthen public service delivery. Our priority is to ensure that digital progress benefits all Indonesians, especially women, informal workers, and MSMEs who form the backbone of our economy.” 

Andianto highlighted the importance of data integration, harmonized digital public services, talent development, and support for domestic innovation to ensure that AI contributes to inclusive and equitable national growth. 

The event concluded with closing remarks from Grace Retnowati, Partner and Country Head of Southeast Asia at MSC. As a member of the Alliance for Inclusive AI, MSC (MicroSave Consulting) brings practice-based experience in advancing the responsible adoption of AI, aligned with the event’s emphasis on people-centred innovation and sustainable impact. She emphasized MSC’s commitment to human-centered and inclusive AI across the region: “AI’s true value emerges when it advances human dignity, expands opportunity, and lifts communities. MSC will continue to collaborate with governments and industry actors to ensure AI systems are responsibly designed and broadly accessible.” 

The pre-summit event highlighted a critical priority. AI systems require advanced digital capabilities, but they must also be equitable, transparent, gender-responsive, and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals. These insights and collaborations developed in Jakarta will directly support the AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi. As a result, concrete commitments and collaborative frameworks will be formalized to advance AI that works for people, planet, and progress. 

This was first published in “Indian Embassy Jakarta” on 21st January 2026.

The Quiet Crisis of Care in a Young and Ageing India

Posted on by harshita

I am often struck by the extraordinary demographic moment we are living through in India. We may be the only country where we are substantially young and substantially old at the same time. Sixty-five percent of our population is below the age of 35, while approximately 150 million people, close to ten percent of our population, are above the age of 60. This is not a distant future, it is the India we inhabit today, and it compels us to think urgently and deeply about the systems and structures that hold families and communities together.

There are several trends that demand our immediate attention. One of the most significant is the rapid rise of nuclear households, driven largely by urbanization and changing economic realities. Nuclear families accounted for around 50% of Indian households in 2022, up from 34% in 2008, signaling a significant shift in family structures across both large and small cities. With this shift, the social infrastructure of care that once sustained generations is diminishing at an unprecedented pace. Traditional forms of caregiving, which were embedded in extended family arrangements and community culture, are weakening, leaving individuals and families with fewer sources of support.

Life expectancy has increased dramatically, and many of us are now living into our eighties. Elderly women live even longer by three or four years on average. But health span is not keeping pace with lifespan. The quality of the years we gain depends on our physical health, our independence, our dignity, and our financial security. Recent data indicates that seventy-five percent of elderly people in India have one or more chronic illnesses, twenty percent face mental health struggles, five percent have experienced some form of abuse (physical, sexual, psychological, or financial) within their own homes, and only eighteen percent have any health insurance. These challenges are further intensified in rural areas, where sustained out-migration of younger family members has sharply reduced the availability of everyday care.

This is why I frame care as a continuum that stretches across childcare, eldercare, domestic work, and even animal care, particularly in rural economies where livestock defines livelihood. Across this continuum, the burden of care is disproportionately borne by women. Care responsibilities account for the exclusion of an estimated 53 per cent of women from India’s labour force.  According to the government’s time-use survey, women spend between five to seven hours a day engaged in unpaid care work, the largest share of which is household labor. In many cases, entry into the workforce is not only constrained by supply of jobs but by the quality of work available. If decent and quality employment opportunities are not available for women, they may choose to stay home for their children or elders rather than accept low paid work. When care remains invisible and unsupported, women’s economic exclusion is not a failure of aspiration or a personal choice, they are economic and structural realities.

We are dealing with a huge care deficit, and its implications are social, economic, and moral. The care economy must be understood as a long-term priority. Care cannot remain a private matter, silently absorbed within families and largely by women. It is a public issue and a shared responsibility of the state, the market, and communities. We also have to consciously move away from phrasing “care” as a “burden”. Care makes us human and is an essential prerequisite for human capital to survive and thrive. Every one of us begins life needing care, and if we are fortunate to live long enough, we end life needing care again. In between these stages, we depend on care more than we often admit.

Care forms the very foundation of human capability and economic development. We must learn to see it not as expenditure but as investment. The single most important investment we can make is in the care of children, the elderly, and families who sustain our social fabric. When governments and markets invest in eldercare, they are investing in their own future, because every one of us is aging. When we support high-quality childcare, we create the conditions for a healthier, more capable generation. When workplaces genuinely support caregiving needs, they not only follow the law but strengthen their own wellbeing and productivity.

Families will always remain irreplaceable in care. No institutional model can replicate what family care provides in emotional depth and trust. But we must build systems that offer dignified, high-quality, and affordable options for families who need supplementary care from outside support systems especially when economic insecurity is a reality for millions. We need multiple models, new imaginations, and pathways that help families balance paid and unpaid work without forcing impossible choices.

The question before us is profoundly simple: What kind of society do we want to grow old in and what choices are we making today to shape it? If we ignore care now, we will inherit a future marked by loneliness, inequity, and exhaustion. If we choose to value care, invest in it, and place it at the center of how we measure progress, we can build a society that is humane, dignified, and deeply connected.

And all of us must decide together—because the future we are building is the one we ourselves will inhabit.

This was first published in “Reimagining The Family” on 14th January 2026.

Women’s collectives driving India’s next phase of growth

Posted on by harshita

Across rural India, women are redrawing the map of local economies. What begins as an attempt to survive scarcity often evolves into innovation that not only sustains households but creates new markets. These are not the unicorns of urban India, but enterprises built from goats, grains and solar panels; ventures that generate income, empower communities, and weave new circuits of demand and supply. This shift rests on one of the world’s largest social and financial inclusion platforms, an infrastructure of women’s collectives unmatched in scale across the developing world.

In Bihar’s Gaya district, for instance, Santra Devi, a widow with no land, accessed a government scheme to build a goat shed and bought a few animals through her self-help group (SHG). Within a year, she was selling livestock, leasing land, cultivating pigeon peas and purchasing a year’s ration for her family. What appears modest is, in fact, transformative: A woman once dependent on others had secured her livelihood and added a steady stream of goats, grain and fodder into the village economy.

Such stories are becoming more common as India has spent nearly three decades building an unparalleled architecture for women’s livelihoods. Under the National Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM), over 10 crore women—a population roughly the size of Japan— have been mobilised into 90.90 lakh SHGs. This mobilisation represents a unique success: collectivisation of rural women at an unprecedented scale, backed by formal credit, training and structured pathways to enterprise. These groups have evolved from savings circles into engines of enterprise, enabling women’s access to credit, skills and markets. They are also becoming market intermediaries—pooling produce, negotiating with buyers and linking village enterprises to procurement systems.

Today, the SHG ecosystem spans 21 clusters and 8–11 key value chains (from agriculture, livestock, textiles and handicrafts.) State Rural Livelihood Missions have further aggregated these collectives into 6–7 emerging national brands, helping SHG enterprises move beyond local markets. This foundation has enabled the second leap: the rise of women-run micro-enterprises that are beginning to reshape local markets and participate in value chains with growing sophistication.

Livestock rearing, food processing, retail and local services sit at the heart of this transition. Goats and poultry offer low-entry pathways for women who, until recently, had virtually no productive assets and minimal access to formal banking. Over the past two decades, this has shifted dramatically. Under DAY-NRLM, banks have disbursed over ₹11 lakh crore in credit to women’s SHGs, enabling group loans, first-time asset ownership and working capital for micro-enterprises. Independent impact evaluations across nine states show incomes rising by around 19%, savings increasing by nearly 28% and dependence on informal moneylenders dropping by 20 percentage points—clear evidence that women are moving from subsistence to steady enterprise.

With infrastructure such as MGNREGA-funded sheds and seed capital from state schemes like Bihar’s Satat Jeevikoparjan Yojana, many women have formalised and expanded their ventures. Similar transitions are visible in dairy, where women—who make up nearly 70% of India’s dairy workforce—supply to cooperatives such as Amul, linking household production to national-scale markets. The next opportunity lies in connecting these enterprises to wider markets through digital tools, e-commerce channels and transparent procurement systems.

What binds these diverse models together is sheer intent. Women innovate by combining what is available—a government wage scheme, a collective loan, a leased plot, a training programme—into a sequence that yields surplus. That surplus is reinvested. Earnings from one activity financing the next, savings cycles strengthening household resilience and steady cashflows enabling investments in nutrition, education and mobility. Scarcity becomes the raw material of creativity.

While there are some challenges—from uneven market access to weak last-mile services and women shouldering a disproportionate share of unpaid care work that constrains how much time women can invest in enterprise. Yet, where enabling ecosystems exist, the gains are unmistakable. A World Bank review of NRLM programmes shows improvements in women’s agency, participation in household decisions and measurable increases in income from diversified micro-enterprises.

The lesson is clear. Organising as groups shifts the starting point, giving women collective strength no individual enterprise can achieve alone. Access to group loans and working capital enables asset creation and income diversification. And small, strategic investments in infrastructure, training and procurement linkages turn necessity-oriented enterprises into opportunity and growth-oriented ventures.

India’s SHG ecosystem demonstrates that inclusive growth starts at the grassroots. Local women entrepreneurs collectivised in a group have become a driving force for women led rural transformation. To unlock their full potential, policymakers must invest in digital access, infrastructure, and fair procurement systems. With the right support, these groups can lead the next wave of rural prosperity.

This was published in “The Hindustan times” on 20th January 2026.

Integrated Digital Farmer Services (DFS) platform for Bihar: Bihar krishi app

Posted on by Saumya

The Bihar Krishi platform is a government-owned, integrated Digital Farmer Services (DFS) initiative designed to address the structural challenges faced by Bihar’s predominantly small and marginal farmers. A majority of farmers in the state experience limited access to timely agricultural advisory, government schemes, markets, finance, risk-management tools, and modern technology. These challenges are further intensified by climate change, leading to uncertain rainfall, extreme temperatures, pest outbreaks, rising input costs, productivity losses, and reduced incomes. A dipstick survey highlighted high levels of functional, financial, and digital illiteracy, low awareness of government advisories, limited smartphone penetration, and persistent issues with grievance redressal and scheme applications.

Launched on 19 May 2025 by the Honorable Chief Minister of Bihar, Shri Nitish Kumar, under the 4th Agriculture Roadmap of Bihar, Bihar Krishi is supported by the Gates Foundation and is operational across all 38 districts of the state. The platform aims to reach 20+ million farmers by providing a single, unified access point for agricultural information, advisory, and services throughout the farming lifecycle. It works in alignment with existing Government of Bihar IT systems and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), ensuring interoperability, data privacy, and public ownership.

Bihar Krishi is designed as an inclusive, multimodal platform, accessible through mobile apps, web, SMS, IVR, call centers, chatbots, and assisted modes via extension workers. Special emphasis is placed on women farmers, low-literacy users, and farmers with limited digital access. The platform integrates reliable farmer and agriculture data such as land details, crop-sown information, soil health data, and scheme history to deliver personalized and hyperlocal services.

The platform offers a wide range of core services, including government scheme discovery, eligibility checks, application support, grievance redressal, and farmer support services. Advisory offerings include hyperlocal weather alerts, plant protection, soil health recommendations, precision agriculture guidance, and access to agriculture knowledge repositories. Market linkage services enable real-time price discovery, market intelligence, and integration with private agri-service providers for input and output aggregation. Financial services include farmer passbooks, credit and insurance product recommendations, AI-assisted claim submission, and credit-worthiness assessment. The platform also supports allied sectors such as livestock and fisheries, and promotes climate-resilient agriculture.

Bihar Krishi leverages AI-enabled solutions to deliver voice- and text-based advisory in local languages, including AI chatbots (such as PM-KISAN e-Mitra), AI-powered voice search, and personalized notifications. Long-term AI use cases include hyperlocal agronomic advisory, scheme navigation, market intelligence and price prediction, credit and insurance facilitation, and contextualized learning content. These services are built on comprehensive farmer profiles that combine demographic, agronomic, market, and behavioral data, enabling predictive insights, risk management, and climate adaptation support.

Since launch, Bihar Krishi has demonstrated strong early impact, with 850,000+ farmers registered, coverage across all districts, 38,000+ scheme applications, over 50 schemes onboarded, and 12+ system integrations. Monthly engagement levels range between 20–25%, supported by AI-driven advisory and voice-based interfaces. The platform has trained 15,000+ agricultural extension workers and conducted state-wide digital outreach reaching over 20 million farmers. Its innovation and governance model have been recognized with the ET DigiTech Award 2025 (Gold) and the SKOCH Award 2025 (Gold).

Overall, Bihar Krishi represents a transformational, scalable, and inclusive digital public platform that strengthens agricultural resilience, improves farmer access to services, and sets a national benchmark for AI-enabled, government-led agricultural digitalization in low-resource settings.

 

Reimagining grievance and redress mechanisms to fix the weakest link for India’s financial consumers

Posted on by harshita

India’s journey of financial inclusion has been remarkable. In just a decade, more than 571 million Jan Dhan accounts have been opened, and digital public infrastructure, from UPI to Aadhaar, has reshaped how households access money, insurance, and government benefits. For millions of low-income families, women, and migrant workers, the formal financial system is finally within reach.

Yet beneath this progress lies a quieter, persistent challenge. Financial inclusion does not end with access alone; it also depends on protection, trust, and timely support when things go wrong. For many consumers, especially in rural India, grievance redress remains difficult, confusing, and unreliable. Take Rani, a daily wage worker from Uttar Pradesh, who learned this the hard way. When a failed PI transaction deducted money from her account, she made repeated visits to her bank branch. Each visit cost her a day’s wages, only to be asked for new documents every time. “I do not know if anyone will solve my problem,” she lamented. Her experience reflects the reality of millions who struggle to reach equitable financial services. While they have access, the system fails to solve their problems.

India’s vision of financial inclusion acknowledges this gap. The National Strategy for Financial Inclusion (NSFI 2025-30) emphasizes that inclusion can only be sustained when consumers have access to simple, responsive, and technology-enabled grievance and redress mechanisms. However, inclusivity remains a distant dream for many low-income users today.

What MSC’s research uncovered

MSC conducted a study across nine states to understand how low- and moderate-income (LMI) consumers navigate grievance and redress mechanisms. We used a stratified sampling approach that covered 443 LMI respondents who had registered a grievance with a regulated financial entity. Through this study, we examined their awareness, registration behavior, follow-up patterns, and resolution experiences. Our study revealed important patterns and persistent gaps that form the evidence base for the insights shared in this blog. The following section outlines key insights. Discover the detailed methodology and findings in our full study here.

Awareness remains uneven and heavily dependent on informal channels

Most respondents knew about basic grievance channels. 73% of them were aware of helpline numbers, and 63% knew they could approach their local bank branch. However, awareness of digital or formal channels lagged significantly. Only 43% of respondents knew of online grievance portals, and just 34% were aware of email-based channels. Although financial service providers (FSPs) are expected to educate consumers, only one out of five respondents reported that they had learned about grievance and redress mechanisms from the institution itself. In contrast, 69% of respondents reported word of mouth, 55% reported internet search, and 53% reported social media as the primary sources of information. This leaves consumers vulnerable to misinformation and unsure about how to escalate their complaints effectively.

Resolution is slow, inconsistent, and often incomplete

Among all registered grievances, only 59% were fully resolved. Another 25% were partially resolved, while 16% remained unresolved, often for months. For many, delays were significant. 37% of cases took longer than a month to resolve. A farmer in Maharashtra described a harrowing experience with a pending crop insurance claim. He said, “I kept calling the helpline, but each time they asked me to wait for 15 days. It has been months now.” Such delays erode trust and force consumers to engage in repeated follow-ups.

Persistence, not system efficiency, drives outcomes

Consumers’ grievances move forward largely because they continue to follow up consistently. Nearly 40% had to follow up three to five times, while 14% followed up more than six times.

The process often depends on individuals rather than institutional systems. More than half of respondents credited branch managers or staff to help them resolve their issue, while 49% said customer care agents played a major role. The system’s design does not work proactively. Resolution depends on whether a sympathetic employee chooses to support the customer. This makes outcomes arbitrary and inequitable.

Women face layered, gender-specific barriers

– Women experience greater hesitation and lower confidence when they navigate grievance and redress mechanisms.

– 22% of women were afraid to interact with officials, compared to 18% of men.

– Only 57% of women’s grievances were resolved within a month, compared to 71% for men.

– Only 7% of women respondents were aware of channels, such as the RBI Ombudsman, for grievance and redress.

As a result, women often accept partial resolutions just to end the exhausting, time-consuming process. “In the end, I had to accept whatever help they offered. It was taking too long,” shared a woman from Odisha. These stories reveal a concerning pattern. They highlight a system where grievance redress relies on individual persistence, personal favors, and local goodwill, rather than structured and efficient mechanisms.

Why does this matter?

Financial inclusion cannot thrive without trust. When problems go unresolved, or grievance and redress mechanisms feel slow, confusing, or intimidating, consumers withdraw from digital channels, mobile banking, and sometimes from formal finance altogether. This disengagement harms consumers, reduces usage for providers, increases reputational and operational risks, and signals systemic weaknesses to regulators. A strong, transparent, and timely grievance and redress mechanism is therefore not a mere service feature. It is essential infrastructure that protects users, sustains confidence, and strengthens the integrity of India’s financial ecosystem.

What needs to change?

MSC’s study reveals that nearly 20% of LMI users experience fraud or attempted fraud within their networks. This has a severely negative impact on usage. of the respondents moderately reduced their digital usage, 11% sharply reduced it, and 8% stopped using digital services altogether.
This erosion of trust mirrors the concerns highlighted in the NSFI 2025–30, which underscores that sustained financial inclusion depends on strong, technology-enabled, and user-centric grievance and redress mechanisms. Such mechanisms protect consumers and reinforce confidence in digital finance. It also highlights the need for stakeholders to take systematic actions across different categories to strengthen grievance and redress mechanisms.

Category 1: Strengthen grievance access and user inclusivity

  • Integrate GRM access through Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG), DigiSaathi, Jan Suraksha0; enable business correspondents (BCs) or customer service centres (CSCs) or self-help groups (SHGs) to help users file complaints into the RBI’s Complaint Management System (CMS) or Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System;
  • Expand IVR, WhatsApp, or USSD grievance flows;
  • Build guided DFS grievance flows on DigiSaathi and ;
  • Pre-fill fraud complaints through the Digital Payments Intelligence Platforms (DPIP)
  • Integrate UPI, OTP, or KYC error codes into complaint workflows.

Category 2: Improve data standardization and integration

  • Create a national unified grievance taxonomy;
  • Enable API-based real-time data flows;
  • Create a national GRM intelligence layer that will integrate the CPGRAMS, CMS, the DPIP, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), and the State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) dashboards.

Category 3: Enhance grievance resolution efficiency and timeliness

  • Enable digital workflows with CMS or CPGRAMS; automate updates and publish monthly TAT dashboards;
  • Deploy a SupTech early warning engine that will combine DPIP alerts, CPGRAMS data, CMS data (capturing grievance pendency and time elapsed since registration), and outage feeds.

Category 4: Strengthen last-mile facilitation and coordination

  • Provide BC or CSC grievance apps linked to UMANG or CMS;
  • Train BC agents to capture issues related to the DPIP and incentivize capture;
  • Establish state GRM hubs that will integrate the SLBC, CPGRAMS, DPIP, and CMS, supported by quarterly audits.

Category 5: Build awareness, trust, and consumer protection literacy

  • Integrate awareness into Jan Suraksha0, PMJDY, and SHG or CSC programs through multilingual outreach campaigns;
  • Push DPIP alerts through WhatsApp or SMS;
  • Embed safety nudges and create local fraud-watch cells.

A path forward that can build trust

Grievance resolution must become a frontline service, not a back-office burden. When a customer like Rani receives timely, fair support, it reinforces confidence in the system not just for her, but for her entire community.

However, our study reveals that today only , which reveals significant gaps in service experience and accountability.

Effective grievance and redress mechanisms strengthen financial inclusion as they ensure that every user is treated fairly, problems are solved transparently, and complaints are not dismissed or lost. When redress systems work, customers feel respected, protected, and empowered to remain active participants in formal finance.

Research shows that grievance redress or effective dispute resolution significantly increases users’ “continuance intention” to use mobile wallets and digital payments. Globally, studies by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) find that strong dispute-resolution systems boost consumer loyalty, reduce churn, and increase repeat transactions. For India, a strong, transparent, and accessible redressal system is not a luxury- it is foundational infrastructure. As India advances toward the NSFI 2025–30 vision, strengthening grievance redressal becomes central to deepening usage, enabling safer digital adoption, and ensuring that every financial consumer feels protected within the system. By ensuring that user grievances are fairly and promptly addressed, we not only protect consumers but also sustain long-term engagement, deepen financial inclusion, and build a resilient, trustworthy digital finance ecosystem.

Every eligible grievance should be recorded, and once registered, it must be resolved as per regulatory guidelines. With the right systems and accountability, we can ensure that every person who enters the formal financial system feels protected, respected, and empowered to stay.