Theme: Financial Lives of Poor Households

Ideas on how to benefit from the account opening momentum and make progress on usage as well.

Imagine you are a labourer in a village in Odisha and have painstakingly completed your Aadhaar formalities (for which you gave a proof of permanent address and your fingerprints).

A new paper by Anandi Mani et al in the August issue of Science has a stunning finding – that the cognitive impact of being poor may be equivalent to as much as 13 IQ points.

We use an audit methodology where auditors ask for tax saving instruments from banks and document the disclosures made on product features at the time of sale. In private sector banks with high sales incentives, the high commission product is recommended. In public sector banks, where there are deposit mobilisation targets, fixed deposits are recommended. […]

This chapter documents the growing informalization of India’s labour force and the consequences of this phenomenon for the state of social protection in India.

Insurance companies should align their sales practices to generate the best outcomes for low income households by ensuring easy access to a variety of products with disclosures that provide accurate information.

This blog post summarises key takeaways from a virtual workshop we recently hosted. It was conducted against the backdrop of a study that we recently concluded titled “Can information disclosures influence life insurance purchase decisions for low-income households?”.

There is a need for updated dataset on households’ consumption patterns, increased frequency of surveys on households’ balance sheet, and to collect data on financial well-being.

Unlike term plans that provide life risk cover or unit-linked schemes, where returns are market-linked, endowment plans offer maturity benefits upon survival & minimum guaranteed return.

Low-income households seek loans often, but credit is suitable if it helps sustain or improve financial well-being. This is what must be ensured by lenders, regulators & policymakers.