A Study on Financial Inclusion in Indian Regional Rural Banks

Abstract

Financial inclusion is the delivery of financial services at affordable costs to vast sections of disadvantaged and low income groups. The lower income category has been living under the constant shadow of financial duress mainly because of the absence of savings. Presence of banking services and products aims to provide a critical tool to inculcate the habit to save. The issue of financial inclusion is emerging as the new paradigm of economic growth. Access to a bank account is a first step toward broader financial inclusion since it allows people to save, send money and receive payments. This paper is mainly aimed to study the financial inclusion and progress of Regional Rural Bank's in India. Further the paper aims to focus on different variables of progress like banking outlets in villages, branchless mode, Basic Savings Bank Deposit Account, Kisan Credit Card, General Credit Card, Information and Communication Technology etc. This paper attempted to study progress report and analysis of different variables from 2013 to 2017. It also attempted to study absolute change in terms of increase/decrease in number of accounts, issue of Kisan Credit Card, General Credit Card from previous year to current year. The outcomes of the paper revealed that different variable have shown positive progress under financial inclusion.