Exclusive bank for poor: thinking beyound Grameen bank with Caritas India JEEVIKA model!

Hope we all are thorough with Grameen bank model of Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank was started 1976 when Professor Muhammad Yunus, a Fulbright scholar and Professor at University of Chittagong, researched how to provide banking for the rural poor. The model is considered as one of the most successful model for financial and social inclusion and various Asian countries have adopted the model.

But now time is changing and banking is strengthening infact in India about 87% of government programmes are now linked with banks and still 40% of community do not have any access to baking services< so how to meet with this challenge?

With above concern Caritas India ( Based on her JEEVIKA model intervention in Madhya Pradesh, JEEVIKA is a development initiative by Caritas India and Caritas Spain with tribal communities in interior pockets of MP. For more log on to www.jeevikacaritas.blogspot.com ) has tried to work on a paper of ‘Inclusion’ on exclusive bank for poor with three basic concepts-social inclusion, financial inclusion and Entrepreneurial inclusion and same has been submitted to the one of the largest platform of policy makers –Skoch Summit (www.skoch.org ) and the best part our concept paper has been shortlisted to present to the policy makers.

In connection with the above in a recently ( 22nd June 2014) held 36th Skoch summit in New Delhi, Caritas India team delivered on ‘Differentiated Banking’ based on the concept of community managed bank model introduced by Reserve Bank of India.

Although Caritas India’s model of ‘exclusive bank for poor’ was critically acclaimed as ‘interesting and innovative’, the need for huge initial capital investment was seen as one major challenge by the experts consisting mostly of bank CEOs and MDs along with few ministers. However, involving various (interested) stakeholders could be one way to address the said challenge. In response to this, Caritas India HOD for programs PM Philip argued that there are successful working models at the community (field) level that could support the claim discussed in the paper. The recent paper on ‘differentiated banking’ is only one of the several other papers submitted by Caritas India team at Skoch.

Skoch Development Foundation is an autonomous, policy oriented, not for profit policy think tank. More than the cash and the certificate awarded to selected papers, Caritas India sees Skoch summits as a platform for propagating change and development. You can see the links of CI concept at:

http://caritasindia.org/index.php/news-events/news/78-national-news/169-shgs-what-is-the-next-level

http://www.skoch.org/?p=944

I suggest we all can go through the CI proposed model of Banking inclusion: Exclusive Bank for poor based on JEEVIKA Model of Caritas India and see is this really the need? Is this time now really to think beyond ‘Grameen bank’ model? Do we think JEEVIKA JEEVIKA model could also work in other countries? Do we think Caritas could bring a sustainable model for banking inclusion in Asia through models like JEEVIKA?

Find attached concept paper on Bank Exclusive for poor in line with JEEVIKA!

Feel free to write to us at vinodpandey@caritasindia.org for concept paper on Bank Exclusive for poor in line with JEEVIKA Model!