•  
Main Banner Image
Money & Finance

Seeking ‘greenium’

  • Articles

Finance for small-firm growth: Towards flexibility and innovation

While microfinance contract innovations like repayment grace periods help small-firm owners, they can increase default rates for microfinance institutions. Based on field experiments in Pakistan and K...

  • Articles

Do commodity derivatives suspensions rein in food price inflation?

Since December 2021, derivatives trading on seven agricultural commodities remains suspended, driven by concerns over excessive speculation and its potential impact on food prices. This article highli...

  • Articles

RBI’s costly experiments with the currency

During 2023-2024, the average annual volatility of the rupee-dollar exchange rate was 1.8% – the lowest in over two decades. In this post, Patnaik, Pandey and Sengupta explain why sudden and sharp l...

  • Perspectives
178 posts
Refine list by:
--Please Select--
--Please Select--

India’s insurance sector: Challenges and opportunities

While India’s insurance sector has been growing dynamically in recent years, its share in the global insurance market remains abysmally low. This article traces the journey of the Indian insurance s...

  • Articles

Using contract price to identify ‘right’ clients for flexible microfinance

While repayment flexibility in microfinance helps mitigate the impact of negative income shocks on MSMEs, it might increase default due to borrowers’ time-inconsistent or excessively risky behaviour...

  • Articles

Achieving the target of complete financial inclusion in India through fintech

A significant number of people in India remain outside the purview of the formal financial system. Use of financial echnologies can help address the gaps in financial inclusion left by the traditional...

  • Perspectives

Unearthing “zombies” in the Indian corporate sector

The secular rise of "zombie" borrowers – insolvent firms sustained by continued extension of credit by complicit banks – is a source of concern as these firms tie up productive workers and capital...

  • Articles

Effect of conflict on bank lending: Evidence from Indian border areas

Conflict can affect economic outcomes through the decisions of key individuals. This article studies the effect of repeated incidents of shellingacross the India-Pakistan border, on loan officers work...

  • Articles

Productivity growth in Indian banking: Who gained?

Since the deregulation and privatisation reforms of the early 1990s, Indian banking has witnessed many significant changes. This article finds that the sector experienced steady productivity growth un...

  • Articles

Covid-19 and debt moratorium conundrum: The case of microfinance

Given the extent of liquidity shock caused by Covid-19, the Reserve Bank of India enabled all lending institutions to provide their borrowers with a repayment moratorium on term loans until 31 Augus...

  • Perspectives

Covid-19: Right opportunity to strengthen the Insolvency and Bankruptcy code

The government has recently exempted all Covid-related debts from the definition of default, and stalled the invocation of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016 for one year, to allow ailing ente...

  • Perspectives

How microfinance can help entrepreneurs escape the poverty trap

The idea of poverty traps being important for microenterprises is captured in the adage “it takes money to make money”. This article reports on a study following households in India exposed to dif...

  • Articles

Policymaking at a time of high risk-aversion

The key issues in the Indian financial sector in general, and banking in particular, are bearing risk and allocating capital. These are especially important now as India enters into a prolonged phase ...

  • Perspectives

Yes Bank: The anatomy of a crisis

The string of frauds and failures unearthed in recent years in the Indian banking sector indicate weaknesses in banking supervision. In this post, Pandey and Priyadarshini argue that the Reserve Bank ...

  • Perspectives

Using intermediaries to deliver credit

Communities are monitoring service providers, and local governments are delivering development and welfare programmes in developing countries. This article indicates the potential value of enlarging t...

  • Articles

Recent Contributors

Jitendra

Jitendra Aswani

MIT Sloan

Shivaram

Shivaram Rajgopal

Columbia Business School

Muhammad

Muhammad Meki

University of Oxford

Nidhi

Nidhi Aggarwal

Indian Institute of Management Udaipur

Tirtha

Tirtha Chatterjee

Jindal School of Government and Public Policy

Karan

Karan Sehgal

Boston College

Ila

Ila Patnaik

Aditya Birla Group

Rajeswari

Rajeswari Sengupta

Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research

View all Contributors

Most Popular Money & Finance Posts

India’s insurance sector: Challenges and opportunities

While India’s insurance sector has been growing dynamically in recent years, its share in the global insurance market remains abysmally low. This article traces the journey of the Indian insurance s...

  • Articles

Financial inclusion in India: Progress and prospects

Financial inclusion is globally considered as a critical indicator of development and well-being of society. In this post, Srinivasa Rao traces the financial inclusion journey in India so far, and dis...

  • Perspectives

Thinking about financial sector reforms in India

A key element of the economy that needs to function well in order to facilitate India’s strong and sustained recovery from the pandemic is the financial system. In this post, Sengupta and Vardhan d...

  • Perspectives