In order to control over-indebtedness that often leads to capacity failure, the Reserve Bank of India recently issued directives for Micro Finance Institutions to restrict multiple loans to borrowers. These institutions are also required to regularly share their current borrowers' loan records with a Credit Information Company. We argue here that ex-post loan record verification is inefficient and inadequate considering the socioeconomic and informational asymmetries in micro-credit markets. Instead, we reason, household characteristics can predict multiple-borrowing behaviour. Our empirical analysis shows that this is true to some extent. We dwell on policy implications and ways to improve our model.

The policymakers around the globe have been emphasizing on financial inclusion in line with sustainable development goals 2030 of the United Nations. Developing countries are still behind in ensuring greater financial inclusion especially for women. While banks are the apex financial institutions in any country, microfinance institutions proved to be promising in advancing financial inclusion because of its better reach to women in remote areas. Thus in a country like India, the outreach and sustainability of microfinance institutions is of utmost importance. This paper aims to rank the performance of microfinance institutions listed by Reserve Bank of India on the basis of their outreach, sustainability, quality and efficiency. The ranking is done separately for five years (2014-15 to 2018-19) using Technique for Order of Preference (TOPSIS) method while overall ranking and benchmarking for five years has been done using interval valued TOPSIS (IV-TOPSIS) method. The robustness of the study has been checked through sensitivity analysis. The overall results portray Satin Creditcare Network Limited as the best performing NBFC-MFI while BWDA Finance Limited as the worst performer for the combined period of 5 years

The consistent gender gap in financial inclusion over time is postulated by World Bank Findex data despite an increase in the overall financial inclusion level around the globe. Women’s financial inclusion is significant in line with the promotion of gender equality- one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations. Academic literatures have fragmented studies on women’s financial inclusion and there is a dearth of systematic literature review to comprehend the overall literature landscape in analyzing research gaps. This article is an attempt to conduct a structured systematic literature review to identify factors impacting women’s financial inclusion, the associated gender gap and importance of promoting greater financial inclusion for women. Literature reviews are important to map the existing landscape of a study problem and develop further knowledge. This study reviews 75 peer reviewed articles from 2000 to 2021 and presents the findings in a comprehensive manner following a conceptual model. Synthesized evidence reveal the existence of gendered financial inclusion mainly due to demand side factors. Various socio-economic and cultural factors are also seen to influence women’s financial exclusion. Based on the mapping of existing findings the study suggests future research directions where emerging themes lie in the areas related to digital finance, financial self-efficacy and financial literacy which are important for enhancing women’s financial inclusion.

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