Early signs that the business correspondent (BC) model is up for a rehaul is upon us. The Business Correspondent Federation of India (BCFI), and Grameen Foundation E India (GFI) have made a pitch for "concrete capacity building" in the channel. A fortnight ago, the Business Correspondent Resource Council sought the set-up of an India Business Correspondent Equity Fund - akin to the India Microfinance Equity Fund - to the department of financial services in North Block. Both requests mark a liftoff from the C Rangarajan Committee on Financial Inclusion (January 2008): it was for funds being provided to specialised institutions which provide capacity-building inputs to BCs. And that the same could be extended out of the Financial Inclusion Promotion and Development Fund.
Seventeen years after the rollout of the Mint Road-led model for financial inclusion and to support employment generation, the blueprint of a Version:2 is in the works.
"Three digital initiatives have the potential to ring in a new financial inclusion model," says Sunil Kulkarni, chief executive officer (CEO) of BCFI. He points to the account aggregator (AA) framework, the open network for digital commerce (ONDC), and the central bank digital currency. "These would augment the digital public infrastructure of Aadhaar, 5G and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI)."
This story is from the July 17, 2023 edition of Business Standard.
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This story is from the July 17, 2023 edition of Business Standard.
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