Mainstreaming tribals through financial literacy: An empirical analysis (With special reference to Keonjhar and Mayurbhanja districts of Odisha)

Financial Literacy is a stepping stone towards financial inclusion. Moreover, as financial markets are becoming increasingly complex with serious problems of information asymmetry, the need for financial literacy becomes even more acute. The RBI has initiated a “Project Financial Literacy” with the objective of disseminating information regarding the central bank and general banking concepts to various target groups. This is also available in 13 languages. The “Financial Education” website link offers basis of banking, finance and central banking for children of all ages in a comic book format. This simplifies the complexities of banking, finance and central banking, with the goal of making the learning fun and interesting. RBI has recently issued guidelines to banks in India to provide ‘no frills’ bank accounts as well as general purpose credit cards with no collateral requirements. These measures are intended to promote financial inclusion and have already been adopted by Banking Codes and Standards Board of India. There are two obstacles to greater financial inclusion. The first is simply commercial. Transaction costs for both banks and clients have remained high, particularly in distributing credit, which is essentially high cost.