Can the unbanked, bank?

Visited NRP at the Indian School
of Business in Hyderabd

My friend Dr. Prabhala is at the University of Maryland.  As friends, we know him as NRP.  He just finished his stint as the Head of Research for the Reserve Bank of India. He worked for Former Governor Raghuram Rajan, who himself returned to the University of Chicago.

His new paper, Bank Accounts For The Unbanked: Evidence from a Big Bang Experiment, describes the recent Indian experiment at a very large scale to bring banking services to those without access to the financial system.  By way of context, over 2.5 billion individuals around the world lack a bank account,

His paper addresses how they may be reached, whether the banking activity picks up and whether financial literacy efforts are effective.

I thank NRP for acknowledging my feedback to his paper.