Banking on Trust
Following up on the Reserve Bank of India announcement to allow small shops and phone kiosks, etc to handle basic services on behalf of banks – I directed questions around potential receptivity amongst Dharavi residents.
Island Life
Shankar Jadhar’s friends describe him as an “all-rounder”. The 40 year old Dharavi resident is married with 5 children and lives close to the traffic island which he has laid unofficial claim to, from where he conducts his business.
Indian Banking Widens Reach
Yesterday’s Times of India pointed to a development by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to extend its services. It has yet to be seen how this initiative will be taken up by BoP users both rurally and in urban neighbourhoods not currently not served by banks.
Dharavi: Initial Impressions
Ahead of my research in ernest of unpredictable incomes at Dharavi in Mumbai this month, I am taking this week to explore and photograph the area.
Synthesis of the Prepaid Economy Project
The impetus for the Prepaid Economy project came from field observations during other projects which focused on the design and development of products and services for those at the BoP. It was noted that the majority of the BoP lived on irregular incomes derived from a variety of sources, while few business models or payment […]
Download PDF of research paper submitted to TU Delft
I was lucky to be able to get very insightful feedback from Brett Mathews of Mathwood Consulting, who has been in the field looking into the challenges oral cultures pose to business models in rural microfinance. Here is the PDF of the draft paper and Mr Mathews' comments on the prepaid economy project as submitted […]
Seasonality and its influence on rural BoP household financial management
Fallow field, Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan India January 2009 I first noticed the influence of seasonality on income halfway during the Indian fieldwork. On one hand, its but natural that the seasons are linked to a farmer's cash flow, dependent as it is on the harvest. But it was when I met the silversmith that I […]
Observations: Rural BoP and the cash economy
Investment or Independence? Photo Credit: Goverdhan Meena Across the board, the particular characteristic that most stood out during my conversations with the rural populace in India and The Philippines, as well as prior experiences elsewhere, was their undeniable pride in their degree of self reliance, and thus, their level of independence from […]
Update on final report of project and research paper
The final report for the iBoP Asia Project will be approximately ten pages long (not including appendices) and completed by the end of the month. I'll only put that up online once they have approved the final submission. In other news, the research findings from the field form the core of an abstract that has […]
Wrapping up the project
The time has come to make my primary blog, Perspective 2.0 the default on Emerging Futures Lab's website. While the oodles of information, data and understanding churned up by this project means that there's material enough for future thinking and pondering on the topic of the BoP's household financial practices, the primary phases of this […]
