No One Left Behind: Leveraging Rural Entrepreneurship to Drive Financial Inclusion in India

The case covers a specific instance of state-led innovation in the provision of financial services to Indian citizens: through the the "Common Services Centres" (CSC) scheme. The CSC scheme engages a vast network of rural entrepreneurs to drive the delivery of a variety of services, including - in collaboration with banking organisations and bodies in the country - financial services (banking and insurance). This is particularly relevant since India has long suffered from extremely limited financial inclusion of its citizens, especially in rural areas and among marginalised groups and communities. Banking penetration as well as financial awareness too have historically been low. The present scheme has been an effort to combat these (and other related) challenges to bring hitherto underserved regions into the ambit of the formal banking system in India using a combination of locl social networks, innovative use of digital technologies, and iterative policy design.

Learning Objectives