This paper attempts to develop a framework to assess the socioeconomic value of Open Data in India. The paper discusses the various actors, their roles vis-a-vis usage of Open Data to generate intended output, and the net results of expected … Read More
Publications
Engaging the Private Sector in Urban Sanitation Services – A Review of South Asian Cities
In 2017, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation commissioned a rapid review of the South Asia regional portfolio of BMGF/DFID comprising of city projects on public-private partnerships in urban sanitation delivery. This report presents a synthesis of findings and lessons … Read More
Building Hooks and Ladders: A Case for Integrating Digital Payments and Lending to Small Merchants
This report presents insights from a study conducted for informing the credit operations of the Catalyst initiative at IFMR. The scoping study was commissioned for assessing the credit needs of micromerchants and understanding whether credit products can be used as … Read More
Mapping the Merchant’s Mind: An Analysis of Digital Payment Behaviors by Fixed Store Merchants in Jaipur
This report by Catalyst and People Research on India’s Consumer Economy (PRICE) provides a deeper context on small business profiles, infrastructure, needs, behaviors, and perceptions based on a large sample survey. The study focuses on small merchants with fixed establishments, … Read More
PayNearby: Towards a Hyperlocal Fintech Network
PayNearby is a start-up that aims to create the world’s largest hyperlocal fintech network in India, by enabling existing corner shops to become digital financial service hubs. In this piece, co-founder Anand Bajaj shares Paynearby’s experience in working with micro-merchants … Read More
FINGPAY: Fostering Bare-pocket Transactions
Fingpay, a biometrics-based payments platform, seeks to facilitate seamless transactions without the need for customers to carry cash, cards, or phones on them. In this piece, co-founder of Fingpay, Pratyush Halen, shares insights from Fingpay’s journey in digitising payments using … Read More
In BHIM We Trust
This field story captures the experience of small merchants in adopting and using the BHIM UPI application. Merchants were onboarded to the BHIM QR code platform as part of Catalyst’s experiments to test strategies for enabling digital payment adoption in … Read More
Unlocking Finance for Small Merchants – from Digital Data to Digital Credit
Digitizing merchant can payments generate data trails that can be used by financial service provider to assess the credit worthiness of small merchants. This field story captures insights from a Catalyst experiment in which micromerchants were provided with a Point … Read More
Age just a Number when it Comes to Digital Payments
This field story captures insights on customer experiences with transacting digitally at e-Mitra outlets. These outlets provide a range of government and private sector services, from bill payments to college admissions, through kiosks.
Conservation Agriculture: Documenting Adoption across the Gangetic Plains of India
Research efforts of the CGIAR have since been instrumental in adapting CA practices to cropping systems found across the developing world. This report presents findings from a study that rigorously evaluates the adoption of CA within the intensive rice-wheat cropping … Read More