The term “financial inclusion’’ has gained importance since the early 2000s. Financial inclusion is now a common objective for many central banks among the developing nations. As per a estimate by a TCS study India has second largest population around 135 million households which do not have access to formal financial services. It is now Govt’s agenda to bring people under financial inclusion. Some of the major projects started by different institutions in India include:
• In India, financial inclusion first featured in 2005, when it was introduced by K C Chakraborthy, the chairman of Indian Bank. Corporation Bank bagged SKOCH financial Inclusion Champion award-2011.
In January 2006, RBI allowed banks to appoint third party entities as Business Correspondents (BCs) to increase banking outreach through suitable technologies while adhering to the prevailing outsourcing guidelines. It has been mentioned earlier in our post “RBI working on major Financial Inclusion Scheme’’. For further reading, kindly follow the link:http://blog.srr-foundation.org/?p=318
• The Adhar – enabled payment system plays a prominent role in facilitating financial inclusion.
• RRBs and cooperative banks and other rural financial institutions to launch the Aadhar-enabled payment service to foster financial inclusion. It aims at insuring thousands of domestic workers, drivers in the NCR in cases of death, accidents or health emergencies.
• Vijaya Bank has announced opening of 191 small branches under the Financial Inclusion (FI) village initiative. Gurgaon-based financial inclusion start-up Swabhimaanya has launched tailor-made insurance schemes for them.
• SBI has recently proposed to open up 56 ultra small branches in 5 districts of Assam and one district in Manipur.