Let me address following fundamental question. “Have the Innovations within Co-operative Banking and Micro credit Institutions actually reached the unreached?” I clearly feel that now it’s time to think out of the box. Here’s a brief perspective.
Reaching the un-reached
The world over, research has been ongoing to reach the un-reached. Challenges in reaching the unreached which have emerged according to the studies are
• Full proof identity
• Information gap
• Illiterate populace
• Immature deeply penetrated networks
• Infrastructure (roads, power etc.) issues etc.
To mitigate the above issues, it is pertinent to study in depth the challenges and innovate innovations to reach the deprived.

It’s a Competitive World
Not long back, access to formal finance was not even a dream for un-served or the underserved. Now there is shift
Paradigm Shift: Co-operative banks and the micro credit institutions pan continents have made a paradigm shift in the way they provide access to finance for the underserved. A trend towards the formal financial institutions and accepting microfinance as a profitable and sustainable business enterprise is palpable. As cooperative finance is in itself an innovation from traditional commercial banking, cooperatives are naturally at the heart of the micro credit and the current financial inclusion movement.

Despite of the paradigm shift and significant progress, particularly in the last decade, a majority of poor and low income households still remain without any access to formal finance. In this light, the emergence of innovations in microfinance markets has created the possibility of reaching poorer households that have not yet been benefited from the microfinance programs.

What innovation means
I clearly feel that innovation within this domain can be understood as a production technology developed by the co-operative bank or the micro credit institution that produces a sustainable product or service for the poor at the least possible cost.
According to me, there can be various types of innovations in microfinance:
• Technological innovations
• Product innovations
• Strategic innovations
• Process innovations
• Institutional arrangement innovations.
The innovation in the recent past has been mainly focused on product diversification, including savings and remittances and extending outreach, particularly to rural areas. There has been also a different type of technical innovation like smart card solution, remote transaction system etc.

Research Paper
We are going to come up with a paper titled “Time to Think Out of the Box” The paper shall be researched within the boundaries of India and shall explore the possibilities of “Think Out of the Box” aspects related to innovations. The attempt shall be to highlight as to why innovations happened in small packets in the past, be it business packet or energy packet or technology or usage of technology packet. The paper shall be an attempt to suggest how future technological offerings/package to the un-served be priced, matching the price of an ‘Ice Candy’ (‘Lolly’ costing Rs. 2/- in India). Thus, drawing conclusions as to how the exploratory innovations shall be able to address issues like; services at the door steps in a secured manner, at reduced costs, improving the quality, providing emerging market returns, expanding the outreach and alleviating poverty.

The scope shall also cover to uncover the degree of mismatch between the credit products offered by the suppliers and those demanded, especially when the price of credit seems too high and the tenor too short for many poor households, particularly those relying primarily on agricultural sources of income to repay their loans.