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She expressed that in urban and metro cities there are segments of people who earn but cannot save because they
don’t have an identity card (KYC) to open bank accounts. Thus lack of KYC documents does not permits that segment
with access to banking services and these segments needs to be looked at in the report. She also mentioned that bankers
have a larger role to play and take financial inclusion more seriously and work on the gaps to include the excluded seg-
ments. UNDP has been doing a wonderful work by organizing roundtables are like cursor that helps to flag off issues
in an informal way.
Sharing the Outputs of the E-discussion on Inclusive Finance India Report 2014
Dr. Navin Anand, Resource Person and Moderator, Microfinance Community, Solution Exchange, UNDP welcomed
all the participants with brief introduction on the collaboration of the Microfinance Community of Practice (MF CoP)
with Access Development Services for the
State of the Sector
(SOS)
Report
and the authors. He mentioned that the
relationship of the community with this report and authors has completed 6 years of coexistence.
He further welcomed the change in title of the report from ‘State of the Sector—Microfinance’ to ‘Inclusive
Finance India Report.’ He thanked ACCESS and the authors for bringing a change in the approach of the report by
mentioning that the report lays more focus on clients, customers, people, and looks at the MF sector from client’s
perspective.
UNDP implemented long-term projects on financial inclusion from 2008 to 2012. Post 2012 UNDP has been
supporting other initiatives on Financial Inclusion which includes—The Microfinance India Summit; UNDP and
Microfinance Community supporting the
State of the Sector Report
; and Evaluation of Madhya Pradesh Model of
Financial Inclusion: as an example of how state led initiatives can bring change.
MF CoP had conducted an e-discussion on the structure and content of the
Inclusive Finance India Report 2014
.
The e-discussion provides an opportunity to those experts and practitioners to share their thoughts and ideas on the
subject who are unable to attend the roundtable and face to face discussions on the subject. Following are some of the
key ideas and views shared by the members:
Presentation on Key Highlights of the E-discussion
• Urban Microfinance:
Urban Poverty and Urban Microfinance needs more focus as there is great demand and more
focus is required on financial inclusion in urban areas. There is no apex institution/bank like NABARD. There is
limited or no data available on financial services to the poor in urban areas.
• Studying State Level Initiatives:
Stateswho have done good work for example Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh
needs to be documented. It is to be studied that what possible roles states can play in such initiatives.
• Coverage of Cooperatives:
The issues of financial cooperatives are related to regulations, functioning of Urban and
Rural Cooperatives, Self-Reliant Acts or Traditional Cooperatives Acts. A lot more needs to be done on financial
cooperatives as well.
• Role of Post Offices in Financial Inclusion:
Bringing Post Offices into Core Banking Platform, efforts made in
MP and others states can be taken up in the report. Ministry of Finance has already moved a proposal to RBI for
allowingPost Offices to function as banks by giving banking license.
• Microfinance for Elderly:
Help Age has created more than 1000 SHGs of the elderly in Bihar. Many other issues
related to social security and micro financing of the elderly population needs to be discussed. Reverse mortgaging
needs more research and experiments.
• NABFINS Financing to Producer Organizations:
NABARD supported NABFINS has started financing producer
companies, cooperatives and even producer organizations apart from SHG and JLGs. Commercial banks and other
financing institutions still need to open up to finance producer organizations.
