Deadline: 24-Jul-22
The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is seeking Expression of Interest (EOI) for Financial Services Marketplace for Mission Shakti Living Labs to strengthen the financial lives of women entrepreneurs under the aegis of Mission Shakti Programme — an initiative to empower women through credit and market linkages by organizing them in self-help groups (SHGs).
Under the partnership, Financial health programme (FH) has set up the Mission Shakti Living Lab in the state, which aims to understand and improve the financial health of women entrepreneurs and individuals by designing and rolling out a suite of financial health-centric (digital) products and tools.
As part of this roll-out two critical infrastructures are being put in place that are enabled by digital this includes, E-commerce Marketplace to drive market linkages for Self Help Groups/Producer Groups/Micro-enterprises and Financial Service Marketplace to streamline delivery of financial and digitally enabled services for SHG women part of Mission Shakti programme/ low and moderate income households in the state.
Details
- The purpose of this Expression of Interest (EOI) is to invite organizations or a consortium of organizations to participate in setting-up the infrastructure for delivering financial and other digitally enabled services. India over the past years have seen a strong infrastructure push at last mile with agents/business correspondents, India stack enabled with UPI, Jandhan accounts, etc.
- This proposed engagement with Mission Shakti aims to create a structured channel that can allow for delivering different financial products and services under a one-stop shop. The proposed structure aims to create a robust mechanism for engaging with customers, understand their financial pain points, assist with creating better customer engagement through use of customer induced information, drive nudges for action and track indicators that can contribute towards improved financial health.
- Undertake the set-up of a white label Financial Service Marketplace digital platform through which different financial services can be drawn by SHG women/ low- and moderate-income households. The marketplace be enabled for both aided and un-aided transactions/interface
- Have a dedicated payment play that integrates with the existing payment instruments (eg, through UPI, etc) for creating better value and experience for end-customer.
- Foster partnership will financial institutions/banks for integration of their products within the marketplace, co-created with focus on women of Mission Shakti, general financial products and other govt specific schemes/ services offered to improve financial lives of low and moderate income population in state. The rules of these partnerships like level of integration, revenue sharing model, etc would have to be considered in the proposed design. The principle to follow would be to ensure where possible that customer has to have a seamless experience when it comes to accessing and consuming services, the overall proposition is built in a way that it can run sustainably as an independent unit.
- Ensure field readiness for the deployment of the Financial Service Marketplace by undertaking strengthening a field cadre. This cadre could leverage existing Banking Correspondents or any other existing field resources. The applicant can also suggest ways in which they shall take product delivery on ground. The human infrastructure set on the ground for this purpose is to be done building on the lessons from the past on how incentives work for agents/BCs working at last mile.
- Development of SOPs and training material rollout and usage of the platform
- Scale the Financial Service Marketplace throughout the state of Odisha
- Ensure at-least 3.5 million SHG women or low/ moderate income households have access and awareness about the products and services on the financial services marketplace in the state of Odisha and are actively participating
Eligibility Criteria
Only applications that meet the eligibility requirements and the minimum criteria for submission will be considered:
- The applicant/lead applicant must be a registered organization (includes for-profit firms, universities, think tanks and non-profit organizations) and have legal status to undertake the activities if it falls in regulatory domain.
- The applicant/lead applicant must have a local presence in India either through a registered entity or a branch office.
- Applicants may apply independently or in a consortium.
- The applicant/lead applicant must have been in operations for at least three years and must be able to furnish statutory accounts and audited financial statements for at least three years.
- Applicants shall not have been the subject of bankruptcy, liquidation, judicial settlement, safeguarding, and cessation of activity or any other analogous situation resulting from a similar procedure.
- Applicants, any of their staff members or their board of directors shall not be included in the United Nations financial sanctions lists5, particularly in the fight against the financing of terrorism and against attacks on international peace and security.
For more information, visit https://www.uncdf.org/article/7766/financial-services-marketplace-for-mission-shakti-living-labs