Small, Growing Businesses and Employment

Alternative Credit Scores for Small and Medium Enterprises

This study presents insights from an alternative credit scoring system, developed to address the shortage of data for informing credit decisions for the small and medium enterprise segment.  … Read More

The Importance of Hold-Up in Contracting: Evidence From a Field Experiment

This study explores how the relationship specificity of an investment affects the ex-ante structure of contracts and the ex-post resolution of an ensuing hold-up problem. … Read More

What Determines Entrepreneurial Success — A Psychometric Study of Rural Entrepreneurs in India

This study examines the determinants of entrepreneurial success by studying the characteristics of rural kiosk operators, to identify and provide a model for the selection strategy of rural entrepreneurs. … Read More

Markers of Trust: Recreating Digital Ecosystems for Women in Low-income Clusters

Shilpa Pandit

This learning note presents insights on the key aspects for designing a more inclusive and enabling digital ecosystem for women from low-income households, based on immersive qualitative research. The study focused on four different segments of female micro-entrepreneurs and self-employed … Read More

Digitizing Micro-merchant Ecosystems – Supply Chains

Catalyst

This report presents insights from a series of experiments that explore the potential of digitizing payments within dairy, pharma and FMCG supply chains. The experiments were conducted as part of Catalyst’s digital payments lab in Jaipur, Rajasthan. 

Digitizing Micro-merchant Ecosystems – Roving Service Providers

Catalyst

This report presents insights from Catalyst’s survey of roving service providers in Jaipur. It highlights pain points that this segment of micromerchants faced in adopting and using digital payments, and presents tailored strategies to enable digitisation. 

Digitizing Micro-merchant Ecosystems – Fixed Stores

Catalyst

This report presents insights from Catalyst’s survey of fixed-store establishments in Jaipur. It highlights pain points that micromerchants face in digitising their financial and business transactions, and presents strategies to enable digitisation grounded based on human-centred design.

Testing IVRS as a Tool to Promote Digital Payment Adoption Among Micro and Small Merchants

Catalyst

This field story presents learnings from a study which tested a dedicated Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) platform to spread awareness about digital payments among small merchants.

Compendium of Reports on Home-based Businesses

Badal Malick, Rajesh Shukla, Pratibha Joshi, Megha Shree, Anshuman Mehta, Ankur Gautam, Harsh Nisar

This report elaborates on potential pain-points in business operations and the financial context where digital financial service providers and policy-makers at large can innovate to provide the necessary support structures for Home-Based Businesses (HBBs) to improve their financial health.

Women In Business: The Many Shades Of Grit And Perseverance

In this compendium, we feature journeys of entrepreneurs from diverse sections of society and highlight the role of grit and perseverance in enabling their success.