[vc_row equal_height="yes" content_placement="middle" type="image" enable_parallax="false" parallax_speed="0.4" padding_top="110" padding_bottom="0" bg_image="39430"][vc_column][kleo_gap size="100px"][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="2/3"][vc_custom_heading text="USING COMIC BOOKS TO INCREASE DIGITAL FINANCIAL CAPABILITIES IN LOW-INCOME CLUSTERS" font_container="tag:h2|font_size:48px|text_align:center|color:%23ffffff|line_height:54px" google_fonts="font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal" letter_spacing=""][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][kleo_gap size="140px"][kleo_gap size="50px"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row equal_height="yes" content_placement="middle" padding_bottom="0"][vc_column width="1/2"][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/2"][vc_row_inner equal_height="yes" content_placement="middle"][vc_column_inner width="5/12"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/3" css=".vc_custom_1488531456733{padding-right: 0px !important;}"][vc_column_text letter_spacing=""][addtoany][/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/4" css=".vc_custom_1488531444909{padding-left: 0px !important;}"][kleo_button title="Print this page" href="https://cashlesscatalyst.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/CH-Learning-Note-v2.pdf" target="_blank" style="custom" position="left" size="lg" special="no" border="no" icon="print" font_size="16px" letter_spacing="" el_class="grey-icon" custom_text="#d11e3c"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="color" bg_color="#ffffff"][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text="INTRODUCTION" font_container="tag:h2|font_size:26px|text_align:left|color:%23383b3b|line_height:32px" google_fonts="font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal" letter_spacing=""][vc_row_inner css=".vc_custom_1537456868816{margin-bottom: 35px !important;}"][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text text_color="#383b3b" font_size="16px" letter_spacing="" el_class="lh22 ptext-justify"]The 2011 Census of India reports a total of 65.49 million slum inhabitants living in 13.92 million households in India. Although India’s urban population has an estimated total of 33,510 slums, great variability exists in legal status, deprivation, living condition, type of structure, etc. The inhabitants of these slums are the urban poor and remain outside the ambit of formal finance. Conventional finance so far has not been able to serve this last mile, keeping them excluded from the financial system. Uptake of digital payments can greatly benefit these last mile consumers by facilitating faster and simpler financial transactions, thereby connecting them to formal financial channels. Recognizing this potential, CATALYST launched its pilot project in Bhatta Basti, an urban slum located on the outskirts of Jaipur city, Rajasthan. A migrant settlement with a population of 45,000 people and 1,000 households, it is predominantly a Muslim community where most of the population has low educational achievement.

Our baseline study in 2017 indicated that digital financial capability of slum dwellers in Bhatta Basti was significantly low. Thus, CATALYST experimented with a range of collaterals to promote digital financial inclusion in Bhatta Basti and attempted to understand people’s attitude and perceptions towards each of these media. One such attempt involved using illustrated comic books to spread awareness and encourage adoption of digital payment solutions among people. Past research in the field had indicated that comic books may be a successful medium for sensitization on a range of
issues because they appeal to people from various age groups. A study on digital financial inclusion conducted by Institute for Financial Management and Research -Leveraging Evidence for Access and Development (IFMR LEAD) in Mumbai’s Dharavi slums in 2012 used comic books for disseminating important information. The learnings from this study helped us in establishing important guidelines for designing our comics and their stories.

A significant learning from the Dharavi study was that it is important to customize the comic books to the target audience. Use of characters and scenarios similar to those seen by the target audience every day is crucial to enable them to form a connection between issues they face and benefits of adopting digital payments. There exists a huge gap in awareness and access to financial services between men and women in low-income clusters and using women as protagonists in the stories may be more effective to reach out and impact women in lowincome clusters.

Using this learning as a guideline, we created and distributed three comic books over the course of three months: one on Automated Teller Machine
(ATM) pin generation; one on Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS); and one on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) payments. The comic books
on ATM pin generation and AEPS had women as the main characters while the one on UPI payments had male protagonists.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="image" bg_color="#c9213b" enable_parallax="false" padding_top="150" padding_bottom="150" inline_style="font-style: normal;" bg_image="39439"][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="2/3"][vc_custom_heading text="1. ATM PIN GENERATION
" font_container="tag:h2|font_size:26px|text_align:center|color:%23ffffff|line_height:32px" google_fonts="font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal" letter_spacing="" el_class="normal-style "][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="color" bg_color="#ffffff" inline_style="font-style: normal;"][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner el_class="normal-style "][vc_column_text text_color="#383b3b" font_size="16px" letter_spacing="" el_class="lh22 ptext-justify"]Our primary research in Bhatta Basti indicated that there existed a huge information gap related to the importance and correct usage of ATM cards. Many
people who had received ATM cards from the banks were unaware of how to generate an ATM pin and how to use the card to withdraw money. Further, people in this community had various misconceptions regarding the safety of ATM cards; they had been victims of various frauds due to which they lacked trust in digital payment platforms. Thus, we decided to provide a detailed explanation on how to generate an ATM pin and keep the account safe in our first comic book. We created two versions: one for men and one for women. Insights from the Dharavi study indicated that women tend to relate more to a story when female protagonists are used. Since women were a major section of our target audience, we decided to create two versions. A sample of what the “ATM Pin Generation” comic looked like is provided below:

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="39622" img_size="full" alignment="center"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/2"][vc_single_image image="39622" img_size="full" alignment="center"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="color" bg_color="#373b3c" padding_top="75" padding_bottom="75" inline_style="font-style: normal;"][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_custom_heading text="2. AADHAAR ENABLED PAYMENT SYSTEM (AEPS)" font_container="tag:h2|font_size:26px|text_align:center|color:%23ffffff|line_height:32px" google_fonts="font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal" letter_spacing="" el_class="normal-style "][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="color" bg_color="#ffffff"][vc_column][vc_row_inner equal_height="yes"][vc_column_inner el_class="normal-style"][vc_column_text text_color="#383b3b" font_size="16px" letter_spacing="" el_class="lh22 ptext-justify"]Another mode of digital payments that we promoted through comic books was AEPS. Since many people in Bhatta Basti faced problems related to access and usage of ATM cards, AEPS acted as a good alternative for enabling usage of digital payment solutions. AEPS allowed customers to pay by just scanning their fingerprint and thus was an easy solution for many people in Bhatta Basti who did not have access to ATM cards. One of our incubatees, Fingpay, worked on providing biometric devices to vegetable vendors and other small merchants and we distributed the comic books to the target audience to create awareness about these services. Since women formed a larger percentage of customers for these vendors, we decided to use female characters for our comics.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="2/3"][vc_single_image image="39993" img_size="full" alignment="center"][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width="1/6"][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="color" bg_color="#c9213b" padding_top="75" padding_bottom="75" inline_style="font-style: normal;"][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_custom_heading text="CONCLUSION" font_container="tag:h2|font_size:26px|text_align:center|color:%23ffffff|line_height:32px" google_fonts="font_family:Roboto%20Condensed%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal" letter_spacing="" el_class="normal-style "][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="color" bg_color="#ffffff"][vc_column][vc_row_inner equal_height="yes"][vc_column_inner el_class="normal-style"][vc_column_text text_color="#383b3b" font_size="16px" letter_spacing="" el_class="lh22 ptext-justify"]Credit can potentially act as a hook for usage of digital solutions, provided the effective costs are lower compared to credit from informal sources, and access is speedier. Merchants also need to be provided information on the clear pathway on increase in credit as they continue using the digital facilities. Lenders and payment service providers must present a unified front and offer a superior customer experience to the merchants. Lastly, acceptance of new payment solutions requires end customers to be sensitized equally[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type="color" bg_color="#ffffff"][vc_column][vc_column_text letter_spacing=""]
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #da092b;">TECHNICAL WRITERS:</span> John Arun and Shubhranka Mondal</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #da092b;">ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:</span> The authors would like to thank Jayshree Venkatesan for her expert advice, and CATALYST’s Feet on Street team, for their ground support</p>

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<p style="text-align: center;">CATALYST is an initiative seeded by an alliance between the Government of India &amp; USAID, to expand digital payments and financial inclusion in India, especially for small merchants and low-income consumers.</p>

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