Card Designs And Find Credit Balance Transfer Rate

Inclusion rides on m-banking

Over the last two weeks, we explored the need for financial inclusion and the policy initiatives taken so far to enable a well regulated expansion of financial services. What comes after identification of a need and a SWOT analysis concerning the fulfillment of that need? Action, of course. We now examine the action that has been taken to fill this needs gap by looking at some initiatives on financial inclusion (FI) to see what measure of success they have achieved in India so far.

Financial inclusion is a generic problem that affects most developing countries, where the proportion of unbanked is very high. It is, therefore, unsurprising that inclusion models have been deployed in various forms in many countries. Some, of course, have done better than others and we shall also subsequently explore a few models abroad to learn from what they have done right.

INDIA

India has had a fair number of initiatives in the FI space, and we cover a select few of them that are involved in m-banking and cards-issuance.

Mobile deployments

* SBI-Eko

SBI and Eko India Financial Services (which is a CGAP grantee) entered into a venture in February 2009 whereby SBI is the issuer of accounts and Airtel is the telecom supplier. Customer authentication is made possible through a mix of one-time passwords and user-selected PINs. These accounts are not reliant on SIM cards and so are open even to non-Airtel customers.

The scheme had managed to get 55,000 customers as of May 2010, which went up to 180,000 within 18 months of starting operations and was focused primarily on the remittance corridor between Bihar and Delhi, though it is branching out too. It was operating at an average of 80 customers per agent, and the average account balance was Rs 170, both small numbers indeed.

However, it was opening 400 accounts on average each day, its transaction value had exceeded Rs 7 crore within a year and it had processed Rs 100 crore by October 2010.

The scheme is currently lacking in a national distribution infrastructure and therefore, its opportunities to scale up are slim. But the CGAP grant seems to have been well spent as this pilot helped the RBI get comfortable with the basics of m-banking. Additionally, it is well placed with respect to pricing, when compared with international players as seen below.

* Obopay-Nokia-Yes Bank-Fino

This team launched a range of mobile money services with Obopay as the technology and back-office provider. Fino was the business correspondent (BC) since prevailing regulations required the BC to be not-for-profit. In this initiative, they capitalised on the retail network of Nokia. Operations commenced in February 2010 and were limited to Pune through the 40 Nokia stores there. The scheme was primarily aimed at facilitating payments, not at delivering financial services. Since then, Nokia has launched pilots in Chandigarh and Nasik, and soon plans to go commercial.

How to find a low interest loan if you have a bad credit record

Should you be searching for a new financial provider, be pursuing a short term or long term loan or simply want to get an additional credit card and take advantage of a low balance transfer rate, it really could not be easier at the moment. With a huge choice with huge competition amid finance companies fighting to grab more customers. So, in what way does this relate to you if you have a bad credit record? Are loan providers easily accessible and willing to agree to loans for people with bad credit for those with bad credit? Historically the answer was ‘no’ except of course if you wanted to pay incredible figures in interest rates and ultimately more often than not find yourself in an even more horrific financial condition. Nevertheless, during recent years there has been a 180 degree change in how these financial companies perceive individuals on the bad credit list and if you are indeed someone labelled with ‘bad credit’, you can breathe easy and take comfort in knowing that you’re not in a dead end anymore. If you actually go to the root cause of the issue; the criteria required for inclusion on the bad credit loans database is enormous and you don’t have to have committed fraud or lied in a previous financial application and been caught to be included, as the majority of people expect. You can find yourself included just from neglecting to be on time with a couple of repayments on a borrowing or mortgage or even a credit card. If we are to be realistic about it, this kind of thing can happen quite easily; as way of an example, nowadays a great number of individuals spend a great deal of time travelling and away from their base as part of their employment and therefore difficulty arises in having to keep track and therefore on occasion such things slip. People’s conditions and circumstances have changed from years gone by and it’s due to this very reason that financial providers have become more relaxed about the customer they choose. So let us say that you are someone with bad credit and require immediate cash. Who can provide the best deal for you? To best ensure that the time you spend thinking about where to go is not in vain you are strongly recommended to spend an hour or two doing a little research online. In fact, you will find all the information and the top finance companies on your screen in under half an hour, especially if you start your research by visiting one of the leading price comparison or financial comparison websites. You will save hours of time as, in essence, these websites have done all the investigative work for you. Navigate your way to the loans for bad credit part of the site and there you will find a listing for ‘loans for people with bad credit’. The majority of, if not all, finance companies will be listed along with all the relevant info, terms and conditions in a very useful comparison table or chart in a completely unbiased manner. In light of your own personal financial state of affairs and criteria, you will be able to choose the best provider for you, select the corresponding link displayed and you will be taken to the provider’s website. There you will be able to apply for your loan and complete the application process from A to Z online; easy and uncomplicated, and simply couldn’t be made much easier.