Citi commits US$1.5 million to ISB to promote financial inclusion for small investors and enterprise

Mumbai, May 15 (ANI/Business Wire India): Citi India today announced a three-year programme with the Hyderabad-based Indian School of Business (ISB) to study, develop and recommend measures that will promote financial inclusion and improve capital markets access for small investors and enterprises.

Citi Foundation is committed to provide a 1.5 million dollars grant to the Centre for Analytical Finance (CAF) at the ISB, over a period of three years.

Under the aegis of this grant, CAF will undertake projects on a range of subjects in the financial domain.

The objective of this program is to support changes that will have a positive impact on emerging financial markets and participants, including small investors, SMEs and micro entrepreneurs.

CAF will formulate recommendations to support regulators, practitioners, academics, and other opinion leaders to implement financial development in the country.

Announcing Citi's support for this partnership, Sanjay Nayar, CEO, Citi India, said, "While India is witnessing unprecedented levels of economic growth, two-thirds of our population is presently unconnected to the formal banking and financial system. Government, private organisations, NGOs and individuals have undertaken several initiatives recently to extend financial inclusion and to improve capital markets access for small investors and enterprises. There exists a definite need to understand the impact these initiatives are making and to identify key issues for stimulating dialogue amidst all relevant stakeholders to induce the next level of reforms to facilitate all-inclusive growth."

"With this research program, our longstanding relationship with ISB will be further strengthened. CAF is uniquely positioned to undertake this project as it has prior experience of doing quality work in this and other related areas," Nayar added.

Speaking on the need for detailed study in this area, M Rammohan Rao, Dean, ISB, said, "In spite of the Indian economy growing at a rate of 8 per cent, the growth in rural areas is still low. We believe that there is a critical need to ramp up financial growth in rural areas to make the economic growth more robust and inclusive. We are happy to be associated with Citi for this programme which will allow ISB to contribute towards implementing inclusive financial developments in the country."

Using the grant support, CAF will organize several major projects, international conferences, workshops/lectures, and extensive dissemination of the project findings over the next three years.

"Our focus at the CAF is to research capital markets in emerging economies, especially India. We expect our project findings to provide help and support in creating a sound financial infrastructure for those markets, and facilitate reforms to increase their global competitiveness," said Professor Sankar De, Executive Director, Centre for Analytical Finance (CAF) at the ISB.

CAF is the first research centre of its kind in India devoted exclusively to scholarly research in finance, and the second such centre in Asia.

The CAF is supported by leading academicians, top executives from national and international financial institutions and acknowledged regulators and policy makers. Over the past few years, CAF has organised several high profile international conferences or workshops or lectures by leading academicians and industry leaders. It has associated with top B-Schools for collaborative research and is working on several strategic research projects.

In 2001, the Citi Foundation gave a grant of US$1 million to the Friends of the Indian School of Business Foundation to start an Endowment Fund. The Fund's earnings have been used by the ISB for scholarships to deserving students pursuing its one-year Post-Graduate Programme. This programme, known as the Citi Scholars Programme, has benefited 30 students to date.


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