- DAILY NEWS Reporter
RURAL-URBAN disparity in accessing financial services remains the major challenge to empower people and lift them out of abject poverty.
According to the National Financial
Inclusion Framework (NFIF-2014/16), the level of formal financial access
in the rural areas is ...
8.5 per cent compared to 23 per cent in the urban
areas while the totally excluded rural population is 60 per cent
compared to 45 per cent in urban areas.
The NFIF report identified further that
low level of financial capability as one of the main barriers to
financial inclusion. Also, the improved levels of financial inclusion
and improved financial consumer protection were identified as two
enablers of sustainable financial sector growth.
Enhancing access to financial services
for the rural poor entails preserving the macroeconomic environment,
removing the remaining policy biases against agriculture and the rural
sector.
It also necessitates reforming the legal
and regulatory framework, developing or strengthening efficient
financial intermediaries, providing for capacity building measures and
establishing performance indicators for evaluation.
For example, at household level in the
rural areas, it is often difficult to separate financial needs of
enterprise business households’ activities from other financial needs of
individual households.
It thus presents itself as a challenge
for financial service providers to formulate appropriate instruments,
which can address both enterprise and individual household needs such as
school fees and costs associated with health care.
No comments :
Post a Comment