each other in facilitating financial inclusion at less cost. convergence of technologies like interoperability of various delivery channels and processes would result in reduction in costs in providing services and would provide wider choices to the users. the usage of shared infrastructure like cloud computing in some of the low ticket size but high volume transaction handling areas would help banks to stay competitive. congruence in products and processes shall bring in uniformity across the banks and help in creating standardized products that can be easily understood by the consumers. convergence among banks in the processes and technology would provide facilities to customers to do transaction at any branch of any bank irrespective where a person maintains the account, leading to universal banking experience. commitment although technologies, products, policies and processes help in creating enabling eco systems for financial inclusion, commitment at the top to take the process forward is the need of the hour. the commitment at the top should be reflected in growth of business volume from the targeted group and increase in accessibility to the banking and payment system services to the hitherto financial excluded groups. the ict based bc model as a delivery channel stands on three pillars e. g. branch manager / bc / csp and the technology service provider. lack of commitment at any one level will not sustain the delivery channel. therefore, the top management of the banks have to continuously review systems and processes to ensure the three pillars are in alignment with each other. the persons who provide services at the last mile ( viz. bc / csp ) matter a lot in the entire business chain. they are to be, therefore, taken on board by providing adequate remuneration and incentives to motivate them to deliver the services at the doorsteps of the customers besides appropriate training on products, processes and customer service. consumer protection with increasing complexities of technologies, products and processes that are being offered to the consumers, consumer protection has assumed critical importance. apart from the creating environment for informed decision making, the consumer protection policies need to provide protection against unfair and deceptive practices, enable consumers to easily access bis central bankers ’ speeches the recourse mechanisms to resolve disputes, and ensure maintenance of privacy / secrecy of personal information by the service providers. therefore, a cost effective and accessible consumer grievances redressal mechanism particularly as we add more & more less informed bop customers to our fold needs to be integrated into all products, processes and business models of the banks instead of leaving it to the regulators alone. people should feel assured of getting timely redress

mno was assuming liability for a type of deposit. the aggregate balances of g - cash would however be held as deposits in banks that are regulated by the central bank of the country. the above examples illustrate the use of different methods to further the goals of financial inclusion. while in the case of the brazil it is the pos device along with the card ( a somewhat traditional mode ) with the business correspondent which is enabling financial inclusion in kenya and philippines, it is the mobile technology which is driving this effort. as can be seen from these examples, policymakers and regulators, especially in developing countries and emerging markets, are adopting different models to reach to unbanked and under banked customers taking into account the regulatory comforts based on financial sector eco system and security in providing safe payment systems using different technologies. the indian reality and the policy approaches if we consider our own banking eco - system, it has about 95, 000 branches, about equal number of atms across the country and 278 million debit cards. yet a large proportion of our population remains financially excluded. data indicates that only about 40 percent of the adult population in the country has a bank account ; only 25, 000 plus villages have a bank branch out of the 600, 000 villages in the country. only 13 percent of the people have a debit card and only two percent have a credit card. the same low level of penetration is seen for both life and non - life insurance products. the select indicators of financial inclusion ( table ) also prove that india has a long way to go in achieving the desired levels of financial inclusion. as the indian financial system is pre - dominantly led by banks, the financial inclusion policy orientation has naturally been biased towards the bank - led model. the non - bank entities, however, play an important role in providing necessary support to expand the reach particularly for the banks, crossing the proverbial last mile. the issue is given the geographic spread of the unbanked and the low level of financial literacy, how do we step up the public policy objective of financial inclusion? one eminently feasible way to overcome the challenge is by tapping existing and innovative technologies, especially in the realm of payment bis central bankers ’ speeches systems. this can be accomplished by providing access to the formal banking channel for activities, such as, remittances. another method could be to provide alternate payment instruments, other than cash, for both p2p and p2b payments, such as, prepaid