Newsletter Article - Making the case for Financial Literacy - Why is FE critical for the vulnerable clients in India – Opinions from the field
According to National
Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) (59th Round) data, nearly 51% of
the farmer families in India are excluded from both formal and informal sources
of finance. Exclusion is most acute in Central, Eastern and North-Eastern
regions. Among non-cultivating households nearly 80% do not have credit access
from any source. Only 36% of Scheduled Tribe (ST) and 49% of the Scheduled
Castes (SC) and Backward farmer households have access credit and that too
mostly informal.
To address this
issue, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) initiated the ‘National Pilot Project
for Financial Inclusion Plan’ (NPPFI) in 2005 and recommended that 25% of all
the new bank accounts must be opened in currently unbanked areas in a year, and
provide financial services and products to at least 50% of the financially
excluded households. The RBI invited private banks to work with Non-Governmental
Institutions (NGOs) and SHGs, and also public banks, to provide at least
No-Frills Accounts (NFAs), and use solutions like the Banking Correspondents
(BC) and mobile banking to increase their coverage. Yet, reaching these
customers has been difficult for banks – customers in unbanked areas are hard
to reach physically, and have limited collateral or savings to open bank
accounts. Low levels of literacy and financial awareness are further
impediments to NPFFI goals. Therefore, RBI initiated ‘Project Financial
Literacy’ to disseminate information about financial services and products to
groups including rural and urban poor. Financial Literacy Education (FE) was undertaken
by many institutions, to achieve financial inclusion and financial literacy goals.
CMF is currently
working on evaluations of FE programs in Uttar Pradesh in Bihar, and would like
to add to existing reasons presented by the government for financial inclusion
and financial literacy education (FE). Based on our personal experience, we feel strongly that deep rooted
segregation based on caste groups makes the goals of financial inclusion much
harder to achieve, and FE a dire necessity.
In India, with
nearly 22.5% of the population designated as Scheduled Castes (SC) and Schedule
Tribes (ST), it is this segment of the population that has low levels of
general literacy at about 42% for SC and 34% for ST, especially in
underdeveloped states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh (Census 2001, India).
According to the Human Rights Watch and the Yale Center for Human Rights and
Global Justice, nearly 165 million people in India are discriminated against
because of their caste (for more the caste system - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_in_India).
NSSO data
indicates that the median income for Dalits (SC community) is nearly 38% lower
in rural areas, and 70% lower in urban areas, compared to upper castes; nearly
37% of the Dalits under the poverty line compared to only 10.8% of the upper
castes. Based on a survey of 348 villages by Untouchability in Rural India,
only 18% of the Dalits were able to gain entry into a public health care
facility, and 21% were given no entry into private health centers. Blatant
discrimination occurred when trying to access services from government agencies
such as post offices and banks, or gain entry into schools. According to UN
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Dalits are still
involved in dangerous, physically and mentally damaging occupations like manual
scavenging, bonded labor, child labor and other vicious social arrangements,
which are difficult to break due to long standing social norms.
In our
experience, nearly all villages we have been to in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, have
clearly demarked areas where people of different castes live. Those from the SC
and ST communities often live on the outskirts of the village, in kuccha (non-cemented)
huts, with limited financial and household resources, compared to those from
the upper castes who live in bigger pucca (cemented) houses with a pucca roof,
often with all basic household amenities. We notice similar patterns with land
ownership, education attainment, access to financial services and products, access
to work opportunities, and other common indicators leading to better life
outcomes. Substance addiction, lack of nutritious food, infectious diseases are
common problems that plague these communities, further pushing them to take on
expensive debt from loan sharks.
Low literacy
levels and lack of access to reliable financial services often lead to limited
financial awareness; low financial literacy remains to be a significant policy
concern because low levels of financial literacy are associated with and often
cause adverse financial outcomes (Xu & Zia, 2012). For these groups, having
limited access to financial institutions and limited knowledge about financial
services and products may further push them into a perpetual cycle of
indebtedness and financial ruin, making it harder for them to break discriminatory
social barriers.
While FE might
seem like an easy answer to the financial awareness problem, it is a time
consuming and a potentially expensive exercise. Impact evaluations have shown
that while FE is associated with an increase in financial knowledge and
awareness, the effect on client’s savings behavior is often unclear.
CMF recently conducted
an impact assessment of FINO’s FE program, which was delivered to it’s clients
in Varanasi and Azamgarh districts in Uttar Pradesh. These clients primarily
belonged to low-income groups, lived in rural areas, and included many from the
SC and ST communities. They had access to banking services through FINO’s BC
network – a ‘doorstep’ banking model. CMF found a positive significant impact
on client’s savings over a short-term. As a first of its kind of study in
India, the impact of FE with access to savings bank account was being assessed
using the administrative data on the usage and balances in client’s NFAs. Clients,
who attended the 2 day, 3 hour training session with FINO, had higher
transactions and savings amounts on average compared to clients who did not
attend the sessions.
Despite this
positive result, the high cost and demand on resources are the biggest
challenges in delivering the traditional classroom FE. Despite these challenges,
FE might provide a viable means to increasing knowledge about financial
products and services, potentially increasing savings, and improving the
financial well-being of communities in dire need for such help. Therefore, costs,
logistics and so on are formidable but fixable challenges, and bowing out of FE
due to these challenges is not recommended for institutions already providing
or planning on providing FE, especially to these vulnerable communities.
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