UCLA Anderson Professor Bhagwan Chowdhry founded Financial Access at Birth, a social and economic innovation that seeks financial inclusion for the millions of people around the world who lack access to traditional financial institutions. Under FAB, each child born in the world would have 100 dollars deposited into a bank account at birth -- with access to the money coming later in life. The innovation has a number of potential benefits beyond the financial as each account would also serve to document the very existence of every person born allowing for greater access to a variety of potential services, including health care and education.
Professor Chowdhry recently returned from India, where that country is instituting a program similar to FAB, one that would actually complement Chowdhry's plans should they achieve widespread implementation. Blogging in the Huffington Post today, he wrote:
"Three years ago I blogged "Is Financial Inclusion Imminent in India?" I have just returned from India after observing the progress India has made towards financial inclusion. Yes, there has been progress, but much remains to be done," says Chowdhry.
While in India, Chowdhry took a number of videos. In the video above, he demonstrates the fingerprint and iris scans involved in creating a bank account for an Indian citizen.
As for the issues Chowdhry identified, he says, "Despite all these signs of progress towards financial inclusion, the prevalence and reach of these new technologies is very limited and sparse. It can take anywhere between 7 to 90 days to receive the unique ID number by mail. I had to drive for an hour to find the store where I could see a couple of customers using Airtel money. Similarly, the Bank of Maharashtra branch where micro-ATM was deployed was also a 45 minute drive. This will certainly change. But even so, people in India seem to be using mobile banking services mainly for money transfer."
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