RBL Bank (formerly The Ratnakar Bank Ltd.) and CDC (the UK development finance institution) have announced a new financial literacy program that will be rolled out in Madhya Pradesh.
The new initiative, which builds on RBL Bank’s ‘Saksham’ program, will aim to increase financial inclusion (FI) by extending financial literacy to around 25,000 individuals and 300 villages in four districts of Madhya Pradesh during 2015. The programme, which will be designed and implemented by Accion India, will target rural areas where levels of education are low and levels of financial exclusion are high. In depth classroom-style training will be supplemented by a mass awareness campaign that will specifically cater for people with low literacy levels.
The objectives of the programme are threefold:
- To empower consumers of the available financial Inclusion products and services and enable them to make informed choices and good decisions based on their lifecycle financial needs.;
- to educate them about their rights and responsibilities as consumers of financial products and services; and
- to enable people to make optimum utilization of the available technology as well as the products & services that form a part of the financial inclusion eco-system.
The themes covered by the programme will include the importance of savings and insurance, managing household expenses, features of loans and interest computations, prudent borrowing, how to use ATMs and other banking technologies, and awareness of rights and responsibilities as consumers of financial products and services. All content will be prepared in accordance with the Client Protection Principles of the Smart Campaign (
www.smartcampaign.org).
The umbrella financial literacy program ‘Saksham’ was launched by RBL Bank in December 2013 and through its partnerships has reached out to
approximately 35,000 individuals from low-income communities in the States of Gujarat and Maharashtra.
RBL Bank currently serves over 700,000 individuals under various financial
inclusion initiatives and offers products and services in over 6,000 villages across Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
Mr. Rajeev Ahuja, Head – Strategy, RBL Bank said, “True financial inclusion is possible only through financial literacy. Over the last few years, the bank has taken several steps towards building a holistic financial inclusion ecosystem which ensures availability of suitable products and services, provides accessibility and convenience of use through use of technology and non-branch based delivery models and encourages usage through awareness and hand holding. We are happy to partner with CDC and Accion to enlighten and empower disenfranchised members of our community.”
Mr. Mark Eckstein, CDCs Director of Environmental and Social Responsibility said: “CDC is committed to building businesses that will create jobs, and working with banks like RBL is an important part of our strategy. At the macroeconomic level, the empirical evidence shows that financial inclusion is positively correlated with growth and employment, so the joint CDC-RBL programme should make a real difference to the lives and livelihoods of many people in the Raisen, Uijain, Indore and Vidisha districts that we are targeting. We look forward to working with RBL Bank and Accion in the roll out of this program.”
Dr. Usha Gopinath Menon – Director Client Education Programs Asia – Accion said, “Accion is indeed proud to be partnering with RBL and CDC to implement the Saksham financial awareness programme in Madhya Pradesh. The programme has already been rolled out in UP, Bihar, Maharashtra, Nepal and this partnership is providing us an opportunity to train a further 25,000 beneficiaries in Indore and Ujjain.The programme has been customised to the requirements of the target profile and will be delivered in both print and audio-visual formats to ensure the beneficiaries are equipped with fundamentals of financial planning and enable them to make informed decisions in the future.”
About RBL Bank: RBL Bank (Formerly Ratnakar Bank) is one of India’s fastest growing scheduled commercial banks with an expanding pan – India presence, with over 180 branches and 350 ATMs spread across 13 states. The Bank has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Global Growth Company, 2014 and has also been awarded India’s Best Bank (Growth) in the mid-sized bank segment by Business Today – KPMG for three consecutive years, FY12, FY13 and FY14.
Established in 1943, RBL Bank undertook a transformational journey under a new management team in 2010. It embarked on an aggressive growth plan based on a robust platform of professional governance, relationships, technology infrastructure, high quality capital and geographic expansion. Today, RBL Bank offers specialized services under five business verticals namely: Corporate & Institutional Banking, Commercial Banking, Retail Banking, Agri & Development Banking and Financial Markets. The Bank currently serves more than 700,000 customers and has a total business size of over Rs. 20,000 Cr. Over the last three years, some of the most notable global and domestic names have infused capital of over Rs. 1,500 Cr., taking TIER 1 capital to Rs. 2,000 Cr. (approx.). For more information, please visit
www.rblbank.com About CDC: CDC is the UK government-owned development finance institution that uses its own balance sheet to invest in the developing countries of Africa and South Asia. It has net assets of £2.9bn.
CDC’s mission is to support the building of businesses in Africa and South Asia, creating jobs and making a lasting difference to people’s lives in some of the world’s poorest places. CDC provides capital in all its forms, including equity, debt, mezzanine and guarantees, and this capital is typically used to fund growth. This capital is provided directly and through fund managers that are aligned with our aims. For more information, please visit
www.cdcgroup.com About Accion: A world pioneer in microfinance, over the last 50 years we have helped build 63 microfinance institutions in 32 countries on four continents. Those institutions are currently reaching millions of clients. The Accion U.S. Network is the largest microfinance network in the United States and, since inception, has served hundreds of thousands of clients with loans and support. Since 1995, we have been working on this key non-financial component of economic development through two major initiatives: financial literacy and business training. We partner with a wide range of organizations to deliver these programs, including microfinance institutions, nonprofits, banks, governments and universities. Our partners provide these unique training courses throughout the world – in local languages and in culturally appropriate ways. Accion’s financial literacy program helps clients improve their ability to manage their personal and household finances and become informed and effective consumers of financial services. The core financial management skills provided in our programs allow low-income clients to move beyond credit management to access and effectively use important asset-building tools such as savings and insurance. Financial literacy is also a critical component of consumer protection, creating knowledgeable clients who can more effectively use financial services and avoid the risks of over-indebtedness. Accion's program is targeted at low-income household members with low levels of education and includes courses on financial planning, cash flow management, budgeting, investing, insurance, savings and debt.
Accion is pushing the frontier of current work in financial literacy by developing innovative ways to deliver content to low-income clients – such as video and broadcast media – in addition to traditional training methods. These new delivery methods aim to more effectively train larger groups of low-income clients, including those who are unable to read.
In India, we have partnered with 33 microfinance institutions across the country. Till date we have trained about 1,75,000 low income clients in India through partnerships with IFC, Utkarsh, Aga Khan Foundation, RBL, CDC and Swiss Capacity Building Fund. For more information please visit
www.accion.org Having already worked with RBL Bank, Accion has developed impact tools for measurement and will also provide necessary linkages with financial institutions based on demand from the field. The high quality of training on the field with dedicated trainers and quality control with MIS tracking systems has made the previous programme successful and mobilization easy. To date, Accion has trained about 25,000 RBL Bank clients in Pune branches in the last six months.
Photo caption:
(L-R): Mr. Rajeev Ahuja (Head – Strategy, RBL Bank), Mr. Mark Eckstein (Director –Environmental & Social Responsibility, CDC) and Mr. Abhishek Aggarwal (Head - Accion, India) signed a contract on the 5th of March for the Saksham Financial Literacy program to be launched in Madhya Pradesh.
No comments:
Post a Comment