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Dummy Test Will Goes here...
From The Desk
Of The Executive Director
Centre for Digital
Financial Inclusion
Colleagues in CDFI may have cause to feel nostalgic about a particular coffee house in South Delhi. It was out of this shop that one operated the ‘office’ in early days. As the idea of CDFI was taking shape, I would meet contacts here, gathering ideas, strategizing approaches, et al. Still looking for some office space, I would ask prospective team members over for a meeting here – to tell them (before telling others) what our organization meant to do, persuade them to share its vision and join our journey.
We were brimming with ideas. We wanted to be a thought leader and work on innovation and research projects – all at once. A little over two years into the journey, we have come a long way but much more needs to be done. And we are working on all areas that we set out for.
Today, we have funders, a strong in-house team and partners. And together, we collaborate conceptualize and develop innovative solutions for enabling DBT, financial inclusion and financial literacy. We conduct research studies to understand and analyse factors that could possibly lead to greater adoption and use of digital services by the poor.
Having laid the foundation we now want to move fast. We know there are many challenges, but we believe tomorrow beckons us with huge opportunities.
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The CDFI Approach
The primary objective of the Centre is to reduce inequities in access and uptake of financial products and services. Therefore, the Centre’s entire approach is geared towards driving low value transactions (G2P, B2P and P2P) onto digital platforms. Increased low value transactions on digital platforms is likely to connect even weaker and vulnerable sections of society and rural areas to an organized payment ecosystem thereby creating their financial profile and facilitating in design of customized products and services for them. The network thus created by connecting individuals to an organized payment ecosystem is likely to reduce the costs associated with generating lead, acquiring, maintaining and servicing a low value and remote customer and the risks associated with delivery of other financial products and services such as credit, insurance etc. for the financial institutions. A low cost model will make financial products and services sustainable for all which will further proliferate the network.
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Objectives
CDFI advances the following objectives, all of which are aimed at poor, rural, or otherwise excluded population segments:
Drive payments made to excluded population segments onto digital platforms
Work with commercial providers to test and scale new digital payment innovations
Develop and scale new digital payment use cases
Analyse policy / program implementation frameworks to help create an enabling environment for digital financial inclusion
Create public goods to accelerate diffusion of best practices
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Vision
To enable creation of a research and technology driven self-sustainable digital payments ecosystem that makes a range of financial products and services accessible to the under-serviced, excluded and poorer sections of society.
Our Workstreams
Reduce inequities in digital financial access and literacy through a series of research and innovation driven interventions
Innovation & Scale
Develop, test, roll-out and scale innovations that promise to expand access to digital financial services and products
Programme Strategy and Support
Support creation of a favorable and conducive environment for promoting digital financial inclusion
Research
Analyse and understand factors facilitating adoption and usage of digital financial services by the poor
Dissemination
Share learnings from interventions with other stakeholders to create a vibrant ecosystem
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Digital Revolution: Going Cashless is a Beginning
Post-Demonetisation, we were inevitable witnesses to daily repeats of all those eye-catching media visuals. But it is not just about the long queues outside the bank. Nor the piles and piles of cash that have turned to mere paper overnight. It is aga...
Krishnan Dharmarajan, Mar 01, 2017 -
A carrot for the honest
The government is in discussions with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to allow more free ATM transactions, so we hear. The thought does have merit, since withdrawing money from an ATM costs banks less than encashment at the bank branch. But it is abo...
The Hindu , Feb 25, 2016 -
India on the cusp of a revolution as the poor get ready to go cashless
It’s now 19.02 crore new bank accounts and counting! That’s the blistering pace with which the National Demo Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana accounts got opened across the country, in record time. That pace, of course, will slow down what with cla...
Livemint, Dec 22, 2015 -
JAM+Digital India=Better financial inclusion for India's marginalised
India’s marginal citizens now appear to be at the centre-stage of things, even in newer areas of technology and financial innovation. This is largely because of #DigitalIndia and the vision behind this programme — the empowerment of a billion Ind...
Hindustan Times, Nov 28, 2015
Inclusion News
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Banks may cut UPI charges for merchants
In a boost for the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the government will push for a drop in this account-to-account platform's charges for merchants in the low-value segment. The government has also extended benefits under the referral scheme for the...
The Times of India -
RBI to come out with final guidelines on MDR charges on debit card payments
Aimed at encouraging digital transactions, the Reserve Bank on Thursday said it will soon come out with final guidelines on MDR charges on debit card payments. Pending the final guidelines the existing norms for MDR (merchant discount rate) charges ...
Business Standard