MSC’s intervention took place in three Indian states—Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, and Odisha. The intervention helped to increase the penetration of bank accounts from 80% to 95% in target locations within five months.

After the intervention, 100% bank accounts in the target locations were Aadhaar– and mobile number-seeded—a prerequisite for doing digital Aadhaar-enabled transactions. In the state of Odisha, mobile number linkage to bank accounts increased from 12% to 91%. During the process, customers conducted their first digital transaction. At an overall level, digital transactions increased by 30-35% within five months.

In Ramnagar city of Varanasi district in Uttar Pradesh, MSC worked on strategy and implementation plan for transforming Ramnagar into a less-cash village. We increased awareness of the BHIM application and *99# (USSD) by multiple times (from five to 150 merchants). MSC helped to onboard 20 new merchants on BHIM and another 20 merchants on Paytm to accept payments digitally. MSC helped 9% of the weavers receive their salaries digitally in their bank accounts.