Tag: Financial Inclusion
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Regulation of Energy Market?
Before I came to this country, I was accustomed to a single electricity utility who held all the power. Pun, intended, the utility could switch you off, make huge mistakes on your bills (which you had to pay regardless), and make you queue to pay your bill in person. Not to mention the regular power…
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India’s digital banking opportunities–part 2
In the first part of this post, I summarised and linked to some of the recent changes to the Indian banking landscape and the move towards wider financial inclusion. Payment banks and small bank licences issued by the Reserve Bank of India. While shifting the status quo, the central bank has relaxed some regulatory requirements.…
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India’s banking opportunities–part 1
India seems to be leading the charge in financial inclusion today. With one of the world’s largest populations (banked and banked), the central bank needs to move fast and decisively. And is doing so by creating its banking big bang. The government started with the creation of biometric ID cards. The central bank (RBI) has…
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How do we fill 60 million empty bank accounts?
Last year the Indian government embarked on a financial inclusion drive of massive proportion. The fruit of this labour: 160+ million bank accounts for the underserved. Wow. The government’s identity card scheme (that made this achievable) notwithstanding, still a substantive achievement. But with all the best intentions, these accounts are not yet doing what…
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Are startup versatility and pivoting a good thing? – Part 3
In part 2 of this post, I was faced with a difficult choice in 2013: change direction and focus of the current startup, or start fresh. Starting fresh meant admitting failure, and in some ways, giving up. And I don’t like giving up! In my mind, by keeping it going I was fanning the embers…
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Are startup versatility and pivoting a good thing? – Part 1
Product (or business) life extension is a boon when you learn marketing and strategy in business school. But for an undercapitalized startup without a full time marketing brain, it can just prolong the pain. You can’t fail fast if you are continually creating new use cases and finding new doors to knock on! Waiting seems…
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5 bumps my banking experience found it harder to avoid in my fintech startup – Part 1
In the previous post, I listed some of the bumps we could have avoided. In this second part, I’ve summarized some of the lessons that, while easy to dismiss as common sense, would need to have been experienced one way or another. Unanticipated, Harder to Avoid Lessons 1. Immunity to Change: This is always the…
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Here’s to another interesting year
I say this a lot. Time flies! Here we are and another year whizzed by! 12+ months ago I took our start-up in a different direction, turning off functionality, changing the business model and rearranging the product set. Months were spent diving deep into unravelling the reason for so many curious but unengaged users.…