Grameen Foundation for Social Impact

Grameen Foundation for Social Impact (GFSI) and I are applying for the Elevate Prize, which will enable us to expand our innovative 'Grameen Mittra' model that creates self employment opportunity for women and empowers women in rural areas through digital financial literacy and convenient access to various financial and digital services. If selected as a winner, 100% of the Elevate prize funding will be applied to the 'Grameen Mittra' program of GFSI.

The 'Grameen Mittra' approach combines on-ground presence of women entrepreneurs with digital platforms and brings valuable financial and non- financial services to low income segments, particularly women, small businesses and small holder farmers.

Our deep insights into the livelihoods, behavioral economics and digital solutions to overcome barriers to adoption, such as knowledge, trust, behavioral inertia, access, convenience, opportunity cost and appropriateness of products and services. 

The Elevate prize funding and support that comes with it will be invested in deep data analytics capabilities and artificial intelligence based engines for predictive models to better address the needs of the target population.

As a result, women, farmers and small business will strengthen their financial management capabilities, increase income, build assets and be more resilient. 

Growing up in rural India in a family with modest means in a geography offering few opportunities, I have seen poverty at close quarters. Twenty five years of work in the social impact sector across Asia, Africa and North America, has made me develop a deep appreciation for the resilience of low income people and understanding of key ingredients needed for any solution to be effective. Purpose and zeal to overcome the challenges is one of the most important success factors. With determination and optimism, low income people facing disadvantages can overcome any challenge. For any solution to work, it must have its target population as problem solvers rather than only as a user of the solution.

My vision is to work towards a world where everyone, particularly all women and girls realize their full potential. The most critical success factor to realize this vision is, access to information, trusted social networks and a determination to succeed. 

The network of network of grassroots women entrepreneurs that I am creating, is designed for impact, scale and sustainability and will help women and girls, smallholder farmers and small businesses to realize their full potential and aspire for more.

Over 2 billion people around the world, predominantly in developing countries, with a disproportionately large share of low income women in rural areas do not have access to the most basic financial services. Research shows that cost, distance, lack of trust and documentation requirements are the predominant barriers to inclusion. In India, 20 percent of the adults did not have a bank account, women are 6 percent less likely than men to have an account, and poor are 5 percent less likely than rich people to have an account.

GFSI addresses these fundamental barriers in accessing banking and other financial services, with a specific focus on low income rural women. Our digitally enabled local female agents build awareness and offer assisted transaction services, addressing key barriers faced by them such as information, affordability, distance, convenience, trust, time and opportunity cost. For majority of the customers, accessing financial services through the Grameen Mittras is often their first instance of accessing a formal financial service. The data trail left behind by every single transaction can be leveraged further to deliver compelling customer value proposition through predictive analysis and appropriate  product and service offering.

Empathy, a deep understanding of the barriers and challenges faced by our target customers (low income rural women with low levels of literacy) and their aspirations and the determination to solve these is the most critical ingredient of our work. We go after solving the problems that are most difficult to solve, rather than going after the low hanging fruits. 

Our uniqueness comes from the deep experience of the team that works on devising and testing different solutions with me. This high caliber and experienced team derives its strength being inquisitive (we need to better understand the needs and preferences of our customers), from its humility (that we do not know everything), and in our belief that our target customer will not only be an end user of our solutions, but also, a key part of our strategy to find, test and refine that solution.  

Our 3rd compelling strength comes from our multi-disciplinary team of experts from disciplines such as IT, Financial Services, Behavioral Economics, Learning and Development etc and to make them work together. 

Finally, we leverage digital platforms and work in partnership to offer solutions that work at scale, and yet provide customized solutions.

Through our work, we solve three fundamental challenges faced by low income communities in accessing and using various financial and digital services. These are demand side challenges, supply side challenges and adoption barriers such as trust and behavioral inertia. 

On the demand side, we empower rural low income communities through financial and digital literacy. We also work on bringing a carefully selected basket of products and services that is driven by real life use cases, which addresses the demand side barriers.

On the supply side, we partner with multiple product and service providers to bring a wide range of products and services related to banking, insurance, payment, investment products, health and hygiene  products, water and sanitation products and clean energy products, so that the rural community may have convenient access to them. 

Our Grameen Mittra network comprises self employed women entrepreneurs carefully selected from within the community. The familiarity and trust enjoyed by them in the rural community addresses the trust barrier. Assisted transaction mode offered by the Grameen Mittras, door step services, constant nudges and reminders and flexible payment options addresses the behavioral inertia associated with adoption of these services.