Highlights of the webinar on “Successful cash support payments to the most vulnerable: Lessons from India”

• by MSC
• Jun 15, 2020
• 3 min

Timestamps of the webinar conducted on Jun 5, 2020, on the topic: Successful Cash Support Payments to the Most Vulnerable: Lessons from India. Refer to the time stamps below for a better viewing experience.

* 0:00 – 2:30 – Graham Wright – Welcome Note, Introductions of the esteemed panelists, and introduction to the agenda – Role of digital financial infrastructure in situations like the COVID and beyond

* 2:30 – 3:30 – Graham Wright – Highlighted India’s achievements on its digital financial infrastructure by stating 3 recent achievements and introduced Topic 1: Role of digital financial infrastructure in situations such as COVID-19 pandemic

* 3:30 – 4:00 – Question 1 for Mr. Rakesh Ranjan NITI Aayog – We understand that payments under the relief package for COVID -19 were made to the beneficiary’s accounts April 1 onwards. Given the scale, how was the cash transfer to over 200 million women managed using Jan Dhan accounts?

* 9:42 – 10:10 – Graham Wright – Introduction to Topic 2:Establishing India’s digital infrastructure

* 12:20 – 12:40 – Question 2 for Mr. Rakesh Ranjan – Most countries want to develop a robust digital financial infrastructure – but (as we know) this is not an easy task. What allowed India to pull this off?

* 17:30 – 18:25 – Question 3 for Mr. Dilip Asbe NPCI – NPCI’s journey has been a hectic and very successful one. What were the key enablers and the key milestones?

* 23:30 – 24:55 – Question 4 for Mr. Rajnish Kumar – SBI is the largest bank implements policies of the government, has integrated with a range of payment systems, and has developed a huge agent network. What did it take at SBI to ensure these happened and what was the most challenging?

* 34:05 – 34:40 – Graham Wright – Introduced topic 3: Practical insights from rolling out the (emergency) cash support transfers, covering both CICO agents and payment infrastructure * 34.44 – 35.20 – Question 5 for Mr. Amitabh Kant – The payments were made to beneficiaries in April and May, and this is in progress right now as we speak for June. What are some of the challenges that the government faced?

* 41:00 – 41:50 – Graham Wright – Significant increase in the agent network and their roles

* 41:51 – 41:42 – Question 6 for Mr. Rajnish Kumar – How has SBI managed these cash transfers? Did you also see a regional variation? How did SBI support its remote branches and its agents during this time?

* 47:10 – 47:30 – Question 7 for Ms. Greta Bull from The World Bank For emergency cash support transfers, which you have seen in other countries as well, what are the lessons/best practices that governments could learn? In particular, how can governments extend these payments into rural areas?

* 55:11 – 56:34 – Graham Wright – Topic 4: What might other countries learn from India?

* 56:35 – 57:10 – Question 8 for Mr. Hari Menon from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation What according to you are the key points that make the digital infrastructure in India, unique? What can other countries learn for both during the pandemic and more sanguine times?

* 1:04:46 – 1:05:19 – Question 9 for Ms. Greta Bull from The World Bank – How would you compare India’s journey with others? What are the key lessons that other countries can take away?

* 1:09:00 – 1:09:25 – Question 10 for Ms. Greta Bull from The World Bank – India’s journey has been long and it is still underway. While we understand a solution of this scale will take some time to shape up, what might governments do to quicken this pace? Any quick wins that they can take in the journey to digitize G2P transfers?

* 01:12:26 – 1:12:50 – Graham Wright – Introduction to Topic 5: How can countries build digital infrastructure amid the Covid-19 crisis?

* 1:12:55 – 1:13:07 – Question 11 for Mr. Dilip Asbe NPC – How has COVID 19 has challenged the digital infrastructure and what will change after this emergency?

* 1:18:06 – 1:18:33 – Question 12 for Mr. Amitabh Kant – How can India support other developing nations?

* 1:23:36 – 1:24:40– Question 13 for Mr. Hari Menon – What are key elements that can drive the digital financial infrastructure, other than scalability as pointed out? What initiatives are the BMGF supporting to help governments roll out digital financial infrastructure?

* 1:29:30 – 1:29:50 – Question 14 for Mr. Rakesh Ranjan – The digital divide is really important and in the Indian subcontinent, the exclusion of women is often a problem. What is India doing to ensure that women are also included in the digital infrastructure?

* 1:32:50 – 1:38:33 – All the panelists Concluding thoughts and comments