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The experience with SHGs in India parallels that described by @JeffreyA. In fact, organizing them has actually backfired. The CEO of a P2P portal was quoted in a recent article saying that, after seeing all the tech and branding of the portal, lenders are now asking whether their loans would be RBI-insured and whether they can get CIBIL scores (Indian equivalent of FICO) of borrowers. When they hear the answer - No and Not Available - they're reportedly pulling out of these platforms. Which is very interesting considering that the same profile of lenders has been lending to the same profile of borrowers for centuries via SHGs, without paperwork, collateral or credit scores! Unintendended, but important, consequence of organizing something that should perhaps be left alone. Like they say, the Internet wouldn't be what it is today if it was organized by some central agency!

£44 million in one year at national level? I remember reaching that figure at the end of the first day of FPS going live at just one bank in 2008. Perhaps this confirms what has been said for a long time about P2P payment volumes being several orders of magnitude lower than bill pay and other forms retail payments. I've also started wondering of late if mobile is such a hot channel for an infrequent activity like banking: I got put off with the friction in my mobile banking app around a year ago and stopped using it beyond the first time. I've saved myself from becoming unbanked through Online and Branch Banking!

@JamesP:

Interesting comment and questions.

1. At one bank's branch, I get immediate resolution of problems and great quality of advice (Secret Of Survival Of Bank Branches). At another bank's branch, I run around in circles to begin with but, after some figurative pushing and shoving, I eventually get reasonably acceptable answers and problem resolution (Linking Aadhaar Number To Bank Account). So, branch experience depends...
2. That said, it's impossible for either bank to replicate the branch experience on any of their remote channels because of the huge difference in the caliber of staff employed at branch versus remote channels, fundamental shortcomings with technology and / or its implementation (e.g. signature), patchy Internet connectivity, online friction, etc. As a technology marketer, I'd love to see all these shortcomings going away - and branches shut down forever - but there are simply too many moving parts in remote channels and no single entity willing to own up to the full customer journey, so I'm not waiting with bated breath for that to happen in my lifetime. Besides, as I'd highlighted in the first blog post cited above, banks can sell better at branches and that's going to be the case in the forseeable future.
3. I happened to visit a branch recently to deposit two high value cheques and get my passbook updated. I could've used the dropbox in the 24/7 ATM center but I wanted to get the bank's acknowledgment, which is only possible at the branch.(Mobile RDC has not yet been implemented in India). I could've opted for an eStatement but I  loathe them. The other customers I saw in the branch were carrying out the following transactions: Deposit cash, deposit cheques, open accounts, apply for mortgages, etc. 
4. Personally, I find a branch to not only be the most effective channel for performing the aforementioned transactions but also the most convenient one. But I know that a lot of people like to show off their gadgets and generally feel cool about using technology for everything. If they feel differently, that's okay: Different strokes for different folks, and all that.

To me, digital banking seemed banking first, digital next. Looks like I'm not alone. In any case, at least in India, digital services provided by traditional banks are way ahead of the nearly-mere-online-leadgen gimmicks provided by neobanks.

When all else fails, cash prevails. Even at the mobile payments prima donna Starbucks. http://ow.ly/i/ax0dL

I always felt this banking the unbanked thing is BS (Calling B.S On Banking The Unbanked) - this report just confirms it!

On another note, if the scope of "banked" is expanded to unregulated entities including Mobile Money Management Apps (MoMMAs), I wonder how the World Bank or anyone else knows the number of people who belong to them. Except during an M&A event, I hardly see the likes of Simple, Airtel Money and other MoMMA reporting their user base. Besides, why should tech-facilitation alone be a criteria for reckoning the alternatives? For decades, if not centuries, people at the bottom of pyramid in India have participated in so-called chit funds, which are unregulated entities in local neighborhoods running on paper passbooks that take deposits (typically few hundreds or thousands of INR per month) and give loans (typically few thousands or tens of thousands of INR at any one time), two key functions performed by regulated banks. Their customer base is even more difficult to estimate, apart from my personal observation that virtually every Indian who has any money to spare is their customer.

@BjornS:

If, as you say, card use has increased and card fraud has come down concurrently, that's Utopia and suggests that Europe has struck the right balance between the two options at either end of the spectrum. In that case, banks may not have any fraud to report to police and this whole discussion is somewhat pointless? 

Why should fraudsters move over only to magstripe USA? Why can't they continue to operate in Europe in online transactions, where Chip+PIN is not applicable? 

IMO, trying to eliminate fraud is fool's errand and, beyond a certain extent, will have counterproductive effect on revenues and go against a basic principle of doing business, "No Risk No Reward". Since a full explanation of my pov will digress from the main topic of this article, I shall refer you to my comments below another more relevant post: https://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=27087

@BillT:

My entire comment was directed at @BjornS's comment that seemed to imply that there's only one option and that it entails fraud loss cost. I wanted to point out that there's another option that entails revenue loss cost. I used India to illustrate one end of the spectrum and USA to illustrate the other end of the spectrum. I agree that there could be other choices in between the two ends of the spectrum. I totally agree with you that Chip+PIN+Signature is plain stupid!

@BjornS:

I don’t think it’s as simple as that. The two choices at either end of the spectrum are:

Zero Fraud Miniscule Revenue: Amp up security to the extent that there's little chance of fraud but many hurdles between customer's wallet and merchant's till. Don't give a damn to the increasing friction and the risk to the sale or ensuing loss of revenue suffered by the merchant. Merchant passes on the cost of lost revenues to customers but bank has no fraud loss cost to pass on to customers.

Zero Friction Massive Fraud: Drop security to such an extent that nothing stands between the customer's wallet and the merchant's till so that there's no risk to the sale or ensuing loss of revenue suffered by the merchant. Treat the ensuing fraud loss as cost of doing business. Bank passes on the cost of fraud loss to customers but merchant has no cost of lost revenues to pass on to customers.

Evidently, both options entail some costs to be passed on to customers. Who is to decide which cost is higher or which option is better?

The Indian regulator seems to have chosen the first option, thereby making India perhaps the only country in the world that uses not just Chip+Signature (USA) and Chip+PIN (Europe) but Chip+PIN+Signature. 

Zero Friction resembles the approach followed by the US regulator, which has mandated Chip a decade after it became a standard in ROW and, then, Chip + Signature.

Different strokes for different folks.

I couldn't have said it better:

Apple Pay Is Just a Big Giveaway to Credit Card Companies

(https://hbr.org/2015/04/apple-pay-is-just-a-big-giveaway-to-credit-card-companies)