India’s Financial Literacy Focus Moves to Rural Regions

In the latest move to bring financial education from India’s urban centers to its rural communities, HDFC Bank has rolled out its rural financial education initiative to take traditional banking products, service and education to more remove regions of India.  The initiative is being supported by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and will be launched initially in the village of Mardanpur near Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh.

As part of the initial roll out, financial literacy camps will be conducted in more than 100 villages in Uttar Pradesh through over 40 rural branches of HDFC Bank.  The camps are designed to teach both youth and adults a broad range of concepts relating to financial products, services, and literacy.

The HDFC Bank program is reflective of the recent trend promulgated by RBI, which is focused on prodding banks to enhance their financial literacy programs in rural regions by leveraging the personnel and infrastructure in their rural branch networks.

India’s move to raise the level of financial literacy among inhabitants of the nation’s rural regions has coincided with its recognition that financial education in remote locations needs to be implemented with local languages.  For this reason, HDFC Bank’s program will be executed in both Hindi and English.

Financial literacy proponents are watching this development in India closely with the belief that it could serve as a model for other developing countries eager to financially educate their citizens who live outside urban centers.  To the extent this trend continues, it could bode very well for a substantial rise in the level of financial literacy in rural regions throughout the world.