Financial inclusion for sustainable development

Financial inclusion is the core objective for developing nations in today's Scenario. In India, Financial inclusion first time used in April 2005 in the annual Policy statement presented by Y. Venugopal Reddy, the then Governor, Reserve Bank of India. At global level 2 Billion people have no access for formal financial services. In India, 41% of the population is unbanked. 40% is unbanked in urban area and 61% is unbanked in rural areas. Only 14% of adult population have loan accounts out of which 9.5% in rural areas and 14% in urban areas. For better country‘s development, access to financial services is required. That only comes from financial inclusion. Financial inclusion refers to universal access to a wide range of financial services at a reasonable cost. This includes not only banking products but also other financial services such as insurance and equity products, The main challenge for financial Inclusion is financial exclusion of weaker sections of society from financial services and there is a strongly need of financial literacy and strong credit delivery mechanism for better Financial Inclusion. This paper mainly highlights the financial inclusion, its need and different initiatives taken by government of India and RBI.