Vulnerabilities among the Non-vulnerable Groups

While there is much ado about financial literacy and inclusion until recently, more specifically prior to the conceptualisation of national strategies for financial inclusion by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in 2012, revised in 2015 and 2018, both the terms rarely found a simultaneous place in the same policy document. Recognising the duo as twin pillars of the financial system has probably led to differential attention, which is why despite increasing the percentage of banked adults, India has the second largest unbanked adult population and home to the highest number of inactive bank accounts in the world (Demirgüç-Kunt et al 2018).

Another critical issue is with regard to the focus of this differential attention; the focus has been primarily on bringing more and more people within the ambit of the financial structure irrespective of the level of financial literacy and without deviating much from the usual approach of focusing on vulnerable groups. Consequently, limited attention is paid on the non-vulnerable groups. Indeed giving due importance to vulnerabilities which are usually defined based on the socio-economic standing is imperative, it is, however, equally indispensible to look into its definition considering the importance of financial planning and susceptibility to financial frauds for the entire population. This takes us to an important question: Does the categorisation of people within the brackets of vulnerabilities based on indicators such as education and economic status hold true in the context of financial literacy and inclusion for India?