The Reserve Bank has taken several steps over the last few years to further financial inclusion – encouraging “no frills” accounts to allow access to basic financial services, initiating and then expanding the Business Correspondent (BC) model and the use of mobile phones for extending banking outreach.
Loan purchases by community banks of loans originated by online alternative lenders have been focused on unsecured consumer debt. As the percentage of unsecured consumer debt outstanding held by community banks has been declining in recent years, several banks have partnered with online alternative lenders to grow and diversify their portfolios of unsecured consumer debt.