What more boring way to start the conversation than to quote a cliché from a very knowledgeable person CK Prahlad ("The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid") ....The bottom of the (economic) pyramid consists of the 4 billion people living on less than $2 per day. For more than 50 years, the World Bank, donor nations, various aid agencies, national governments, and, lately, civil society organizations have all done their best, but they were unable to eradicate poverty......If we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open up.......four billion poor can be the engine of the next round of global trade and prosperity, and can be a source of innovations. Serving the Bottom of the Pyramid customers requires that large firms work collaboratively with civil society organizations and local governments. Furthermore, market development at the Bottom of the Pyramid will also create millions of new entrepreneurs at the grass roots level........

We agree completely. We like to call it Base of Pyramid , even though small, micro is an important business. Is not Pay-pal micro but still commands nearly 164 million customers ? Is not SMS micro but still in India there are 300 million SMS sent everyday leading to a revenue of Rs. 30 bn annually. Do you know...every human body consists of about ten quadrillion cells, but is host to about a hundred quadrillion bacteria cells. They are in short a big part of us. From the bacteria point of view, of course, we are rather a small part of them...(Bill Bryson : A Short History of Nearly Everything)

Ladies and Gentlemen...lets make micro a reality. We definitely believe this sector does not need charity but attention of main-stream brains like you. If you too believe the same, we invite you to join us. We at FINO are trying to build a business to deliver financial services to the poor with a business approach. We think this market is important, not just for their own self but also for our country and world at large. The micro market would have to be brought in the mainstream for our country to progress to the next level. We are setting up an infrastructure to enable this penetration.

To get the semantics out of the way, we are currently setting up systems to serve 25-50 million citizens, possibly 200 mn....we are already at it and have touched 3 mn customers and running @ 20000 incremental customers per day.........you can join us..if you have brains, we can put it to the best use for this sector.....to help the Base of Pyramid develop....

Financial Inclusion : Lets get it done.