India has more than 400 million poor people and is at the so-called "bottom of the pyramid" (BOP). How to feed such a large number of poor people so that they will not become the economic burden of society, but become the driving force for further economic development is the key to the long-term stability of a country with a huge population.
K.V. Kamath's experience gave him some enlightenment on how to develop the "bottom of the pyramid" business.
Poor people in rural areas have never been served by banks because of their costs and benefits. Farmers are widely distributed. Banks have to pay a high price to publicize their business, set up outlets and conduct daily operations. Compared with the small deposits and loans of farmers, the income of banks is difficult to support huge expenses. In addition, the Industrial Credit Investment Bank of India has also established cooperative relations with non-governmental voluntary organizations that help farmers. These organizations recommend customers and explain to farmers that the bank's services include mutual funds, various insurances and even securities trading besides deposit and loan services, which saves a lot of manpower and material resources in publicity. On the other hand, the first round of screening of customer groups by voluntary organizations can reduce the probability of bad debts. If there are disputes, there are also intermediaries to assist in mediation.
The report of the first quarter of 2005 shows that in the fiscal year ending March 2005, ICICI Bank has set up branches in 2,000 online stores in 65,438+00 key states in India, and established cooperative relations with 45 non-governmental organizations. The number of farmers' customers of ICICI Bank surged from 350,000 in the previous year to 654,380+000. The Industrial Credit Investment Bank of India provides farmers with diversified business varieties. Farmers need loans from banks to build houses, buy machines and buy seeds. The collateral of the loan is also diversified. Farmers can use future crop harvests or jewels kept at home as collateral for loans, because Indians like to collect jewels. Even the poor have all kinds of gold and precious stones and ornaments at home, which have been passed down from generation to generation. Now they can take the bank as collateral, cash in and put it into production, and then repay the jewelry when there is a harvest.