The process of ensuring that all sections of society, especially the poor and rural population, have access to affordable formal financial services: bank accounts, credit, insurance, pensions and digital payments.
- The flagship scheme is the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), launched in August 2014, which opened crores of basic (no-frills) bank accounts with RuPay debit cards and overdraft facilities.
- The JAM trinity, Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar and Mobile, enables Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) of subsidies straight into beneficiaries' accounts, cutting leakage.
- Insurance and pension cover come through PMJJBY (life), PMSBY (accident) and the Atal Pension Yojana; micro-credit reaches the poor via the MUDRA Yojana and Self-Help Group bank linkage.
- Delivery channels include Business Correspondents (banking agents), payments banks, small finance banks and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
- It is the broad goal that concept priority sector lending and concept payment banks are designed to advance.
PMJDY, the JAM trinity and the cluster of inclusion schemes (PMJJBY, PMSBY, APY, MUDRA) are very high-frequency economy-and-schemes items.
Financial inclusion (the overall access goal) versus a single scheme like PMJDY (one instrument towards it); DBT is a delivery mechanism, not a separate cash scheme.
Access to formal finance for all; driven by PMJDY (2014), the JAM trinity and DBT, with insurance, pension and micro-credit schemes.