Directions (next ten questions) : Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions given below it. Certain words have been printed in bold to help you locate them while answering some of the questions.
PASSAGE
Financial Inclusion (FI) is an emerging priority for banks that have nowhere else to go to achieve business growth. The viability of FI business is under question, because while banks and their delivery partners continue to make investments, they haven’t seen commensurate returns. In markets like India, most programs are focused on customer on-boarding, an expensive process which people often find difficult to afford, involving issuance of smart cards to the customers. However, large scale customer acquisition hasn’t translated into large scale business, with many accounts lying dormant and therefore yielding no return on the bank’s investment. For the same reason, Business Correspondent Agents who constitute the primary channel for financial inclusion are unable to pursue their activity as a full-time job. One major reason for this state of events is that the customer on-boarding process is often delayed after the submission of documents (required to validate the details of the concerned applicant) by the applicant and might take as long as two weeks. By this time the initial enthusiasm of applicants fades away. Moreover, the delivery partners don’t have the knowledge and skill to propose anything other than the most basic financial products to the customer and hence do not serve their banks goal of expanding the offering in unbanked markets.
Contrary to popular perception, the inclusion segment is not a singular impoverished, undifferentiated mass and it is important to navigate its diversity to identify the right target customers for various programs. Rural markets do have their share of rich people who do not use banking services simply because they are inconvenient to access or have low perceived value. At the same time, urban markets, despite a high branch density, have multitude of low wage earners outside the financial net. Moreover, the branch timings of banks rarely coincide with the off-work hours of the labour class.
Creating affordability is crucial in tapping the unbanked market. No doubt pricing is a tool. but banks also need to be innovative in right-sizing their proposition to convince customers that they can derive big value even from small amounts. One way of doing this is to show the target audience that a bank account is actually a lifestyle enabler, a convenient and safe means to send money to family or make a variety of purchases. Once banks succeed in hooking customers with this value proposition they must sustain their interest by introducing a simple and intuitive user application, ubiquitous access over mobile and other touch points, and adopting a banking mechanism which is not only secure but also reassuring to the customer. Technology is the most important element of financial inclusion strategy and an enabler of all others. The choice of technology is therefore a crucial decision, which could make or mar the agenda. Of the various selection criteria, cost is perhaps the most important. This certainly does not mean buying the cheapest package, but rather choosing that solution which by scaling transactions to huge volumes reduces per unit operating cost. An optimal mix of these strategies would no doubt offer an innovative means of expansion in the unbanked market.
Directions (next five questions) : Rearrange the following seven sentence (A), (B), (C), (D), (E), (F) and (G) in the proper sequence to form a meaningful paragraph; then answer the questions given below them.
- These children are often prevented from attending school due to various economic and geographic barriers.
- Navigation is extremely difficult as the web of tiny roads- and alleyways that comprise the slums of the biggest cities in the country are often inaccessible to public transportation.
- For children living in slums, access to education is dependent on mobility.
- The schools-on-wheels travel to students during hourse that suit their lifestyle and demand for work.
- In order to overcome this difficulty, various NGOs have introduced the mobile bus classrooms that are arranged to go to the most remote slum areas.
- Just as the name suggests, the school is a bus or van still mobile converted into a fully functioning classroom for elementary to high school-age children.
- One such geographic barrier is the navigation from slum areas to city schools.
Directions (next 11 questions) : In the following passage there are blanks, each of which has been numbered. These numbers are printed below the passage and against each, five words/phrases are suggested, one of which fits the blank appropriately. Find out the appropriate words/phrase in each case.
The economics of owning and running a Ration Shop, the familiar name for the outlets in our Public Distribution System (PDS), are such that under normal business terms, the shop-owner could never make a profit. Yet …(90)… the government announces that new permits for ration shops will be given out, there is frenzy in the market to grab one of these …(91)…? The answer is obvious: the business is not for the honest and if one knows the …(92)…, there is a fortune to be made.
What are there tricks of the trade?
Getting fake names into the user list is the most obvious option; the State seems to be …(93)… a losing battle against this practice, judging by the endless efforts to weed out bogus ration cards.
The next is to get the ‘right customers’ on the list, not just more customers. There are people who are registered but who do not have any interest in …(94)… on their entitlements. In a system where caste and income certificates are for sale, it is not …(95).. to ‘produce’ these documents for mutual benefit. Receipts are duly made in their names, and the rations thus ‘dawn’ are …(96)…off into the open market. The sale price of an item like rice makes clear the …(97)… economics- it costs INR 8 in ration shop while in the latter it is INR 30 or above. There are also customers who would rather exchange their entitlements for hard cash at the beginning of the month.
As the degradation progresses, the shopkeeper, in …(98)… with the official machinery, mangoes to withhold effectively the entitlements from even the genuine beneficiaries, and diverts from to the open market. The targeted group is usually not in a position to …(99)… itself to get its due. And thus one has all the …(100)… of a good PDS business.
