The IFMR Trust Group has, since 2008, reached over 11 million financially excluded individuals across 24 states and 356 districts in India through its group companies, IFMR Finance Foundation, IFMR Rural Finance, and IFMR Holdings (IFMR Rural Channels and Services (IRCS),

On June 1st, 2008, the journey of KGFS began with the inauguration of the first branch of Pudhuaaru KGFS in Karambayam village of Thanjavur district, Tamil Nadu. From its humble origins, today Pudhuaaru KGFS has 87 branches operating in the remote rural regions of Thanjavur district (Thanjavur, Kumbakonam and Pattukottai) serving a total of 1460 villages in the area.

The Indian government is promoting the Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and mobile banking – or the “JAM trinity” — as the pathway to financial inclusion. But are banks capable or even willing take on their role in this ambitious agenda? Based on a field study in Chennai, this column highlights the range of costs and constraints imposed by banks on customers attempting to enter the formal financial sector.

The Indian government is promoting the Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar and mobile banking – or the “JAM trinity” — as the pathway to financial inclusion. But are banks capable or even willing take on their role in this ambitious agenda? Based on a field study in Chennai, this column highlights the range of costs and constraints imposed by banks on customers attempting to enter the formal financial sector.

This is the second post in our blog series on the Battle of Economic Ideas. You can read the first post here.

The power of ideas cannot be undermined. While the people and the events linked to them may wither, ideas can live for eternity.

Sahastradhara KGFS started its operations in the year 2008 with a mission “to maximise the financial wellbeing of every individual and every enterprise by providing complete financial services in remote rural Garhwal”.

In the previous blog post of the KGFS Model Incubation series, we drew out the implications of mapping the GDP of a branch’s service area on strategic decisions related to district selection, branch potential, product suitability and customer centricity.

In the previous post of this series on Event Risk & Loss Estimation, we discussed briefly the motivation and key modules of a framework for estimating capital against event risk.

The Finance Minister, in his budget speech for 2015-16, has announced a new defined benefit pension scheme - Atal Pension Yojanai (APY, henceforth) - for unorganised sector workers who are not covered under any statutory social security scheme.