Three Decades of microlending in a South Indian

Transcript:Three Decades of microlending in a South Indian:
Three Decades of microlending in a South Indian town: transformations in organisations, actors and financial flows Rajalaxmi Kamath, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore Nithya Joseph, French Institute of Pondicherry. Three case-studies of field staff working in Ramanagaram Who moved together across three different financial circuits in which micro-lending in India has been embedded Kalyani, an NGO linked with SHG formation and linking SHGs to banks Sudharan, a Grameen-type microfinance organization Small Finance Bank Plan of the paper To show that their movement across these organisations dovetails with the complex trajectory of the India’s tryst with financial access and inclusion The changing nature of their work (transactions with borrowers, goals, targets, incentives, problems, solutions) lies in the different financial circuits in which they were embedded The Staff Ramesh: Hindu man from an agricultural family in a nearby town, degree in social work, joined Kalyani in 1989, in his early twenties. In the NGO: headed the Urban Lending team, with four other field workers who reported to him. In the MFI :Ramanagaram branch manager, then responsible for several districts in Karnataka; later South India Manager SFB: now holds one of the highest positions in the bank Manjula: Hindu woman who lived in a Muslim area in the town, completed high school, joined Kalyani in the late 1990s In the NGO: worked with Ramesh in the Urban Lending team In the MFI: branch staff, then cashier and Customer Relations Officer in nearby branches Now bank employee, manning the teller booth Lakshmi - A Hindu woman from a village just outside Ramanagaram, also joined Kalyani in the late 1990s In the NGO: part of their rural lending team In the MFI: branch staff; cashier Now bank employee, manning the teller booth Flows of finance Finance is not a reified ‘thing’ but creates “contexts in which individuals encounter, debate, and negotiate complex web of the multiple demands of economic life” Kar, S. (2013). Recovering debts: Microfinance loan officers and the work of “proxy‐creditors” in India. American Ethnologist, 40(3), 480-493. Savings Group Nationalised Banks State Regulatory Bodies: RBI, NABARD Corpus of group savings Circuits of Finance: the SHG Bank-Linkage Model Bank Liability Accounts Funders: International Aid Agencies FIELD STAFF Facilitators: NGOs Salaries to staff Training and Appraisals Donations to NGOs Evaluation of Outcomes Support inter-group lending and facilitate bank linkage. Key: Savings Credit Interest Informal Regulation: Local Social Institutions Circuits of Finance: the MFI Model Borrowing