Financial inclusion in India: Progress and Prospects:A Review

While inclusive banking began, in spirit, with the nationalisation of banks in 1969 and 1980 in India, the real thrust on financial inclusion (FI) came in 2005 when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) highlighted its significance in its annual policy statement of 2005-06. It urged banks to work towards reaching out to the masses, offering banking services down to the hinterland. The worrying fact was the mass exclusion of people from the formal banking system that hindered economic growth at the bottom of the pyramid. Then onwards RBI began to persuade banks to include FI as a business objective.