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Chandra Mohan Malladi

Head of Financial Services and Digital Payment Innovation, TCS

Libby McDonald

Inclusive Economies Specialist and Lecturer, MIT D-Lab

A compelling social need and a tremendous economic opportunity

 

Tapping the ‘unbanked populations’ offers a chance to address social inequalities, drive inclusive growth and large business opportunity for companies.

Globally, billions of low-income individuals and millions of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are excluding themselves from viable financial service systems hindering the respective country’s sustainable inclusive growth. This calls for a strategic intervention, which some of the countries have undertaken – with varying success. Parallelly, some markets, despite having access to digital financial services show a lukewarm response owing to high financial and operational costs and consumer concerns about the security of financial transactions. 

In this executive perspective, Chandra Mohan Malladi, Head of Financial Services and Digital Payment Innovation, TCS, gives the industry viewpoint and Libby McDonald, Inclusive Economies Specialist and Lecturer, MIT D-Lab, gives the academia viewpoint on improving customer behavior with digital financial inclusion and the role of different stakeholders.

The key considerations for creating a digital financial inclusion ecosystem are:

  • Forging flawless collaboration between stakeholders and offering last-mile agency network for widespread adoption 
  • Productizing customized and affordable financial solutions by leveraging suitable technologies 
  • The government, policymakers, and market players joining hands with a belief and commitment to bringing about socio-economic changes as well as sustainable business opportunities 

TCS envisions that the next wave of solutions will leverage digital technologies and data science to analyze customers’ dynamic needs to drive mass personalization at scale and deliver financial services at the need of the hour.