Financial Service Delivery to the Poor and Technology
We are conducting primary research on understanding the ways in which rural and urban low-income households access and use financial services from formal and informal providers, including microfinance providers.
Our work
involves
investigating ways in which the use of technological solutions to enable various
aspects of financial service delivery can result in more cost-effective and
scalable operations for providers, and cheaper, better quality finance for the
poor.
People involved: Aishwarya Ratan, Kentaro Toyama, Indrani Medhi, Mahesh Gogineni, Shabnam Aggarwal, Angelin Baskaran, U. Vasudha, Carol Savia Peters, Sean Blagsvedt, Rajesh Veeraraghavan
Organisations involved: Ujjivan, Pradan, Ekgaon/CCD, BASIX, Unitus, CGAP
>> Costing tool to evaluate the financial viability of front-end technologies for microfinance data collection/management
This Excel-based costing tool allows microfinance institutions to perform quick, yet accurate, cost-benefit analyses when evaluating different technology options to enhance their front-end data collection and management processes, prior to/during pilot implementation.
Available here
Case studies
>> Interventions to improve Self-Help Group (SHG) style bank-linked microfinance operations
Ratan, Aishwarya. A preliminary assessment of CCD and Ekgaon's MIS pilot intervention to improve microfinance operations. December 2006.
Ratan, Aishwarya. An assessment of Pradan's 'Computer Munshi' intervention to improve SHG microfinance operations. September 2006 (revised Sept 2007). paper
>> Interventions to improve Joint-Liability Group style intermediated microfinance operations
Gogineni, Mahesh. Initial assessment of a pilot intervention run by BASIX involving the use of handheld devices for the collection of microfinance repayments. June 2007. paper
Ratan, Aishwarya, Mahesh Gogineni and Shabnam Aggarwal. Designing and assessing the viability of a potential mobile-phone based remote data collection solution for Ujjivan's new client acquisition process. December 2006 - May 2007. paper
Pichai, Hariprasad and Srikrishnan Ganesan. Study of Delivery of Financial Services in Rural Areas through ICT: An assessment of the NBFC Sanghamithra's Simputer pilot. August 2006. paper
Medhi, Indrani and Aishwarya Ratan. Learnings from a usability test of Citibank's biometric-ATM prototype. June 2006.
Papers/ presentations
Ratan, Aishwarya L. (2008, July 29). Towards gains in (contextual) efficiency and user experience. Presentation at the 'Innovations in Information Technology for the Client and the MFI' session of the Asia-Pacific Regional Microcredit Summit, July 28-30, 2008, Bali, Indonesia. presentation
Ratan, Aishwarya. L. and Mahesh Gogineni. (2008, May). Cost Realism in Deploying Technologies for Development. Paper presented at the Conference on “Confronting the Challenge of Technology for Development: Experiences from the BRICS”, Department of International Development, University of Oxford, 29-30 May 2008. paper :: presentation
Costs, Contacts and Convenience: Leapfrogging Access to Finance with Mobile Phone Technology. (2007, September 18). Presentation at the CGAP/ IFC/ VISA conference on "Next Generation Access to Finance: Gaining Scale and Reducing Costs with Technology and Credit Scoring", Washington D.C. presentation
Ratan, Aishwarya. (2007, March) Overview presentation on Microfinance and Technology, Techfest 2007. presentation
Ratan, Aishwarya. (2006, December). Deconstructing 4 Microfinance Myths. Microsoft Research Technical Report. paper
TEM's m-banking and m-payments project page