India has leapfrogged over the last decade and other countries can learn from its financial inclusion model and move much faster, State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara said on Thursday. “If you look at it in our country, I think it’s a lesson for all of the globe on how the payment system could be so efficient, cheap and economical,” Khara told ET on the sidelines of the B20 Summit.
He said if Jan-Dhan had been a pure vanilla account, people would not have shown so much interest and that it is the addition of services that has given it nuance. “Now it has gone beyond. People are getting direct benefit transfers; they are also availing insurance benefits and contributing towards social security,” he said, lauding the PM Jan-Dhan Yojana, a national mission for financial inclusion.
Khara, also head of B20 India Task Force on Financial Inclusion for Economic Empowerment, said “₹10 trillion (lakh crore) worth of savings have been channelised in this economy (India), which gives confidencethat this is worth pursuing”.
