JPMorgan has teamed up with the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) on a $9.5 million financial inclusion lab backing fintech startups focused on serving lower and middle-income Indians
The lab will host a series of accelerator programmes to identify solutions for specific financial challenges facing people who earn between $2 and $10 a day. The leading ideas will be supported with start-up capital, market access, technical assistance, mentoring and sector expertise.
JPMorgan is pumping $7 million into the initiative, which will also benefit from insights drawn from the bank's Financial Solutions Lab in the US.
Kalpana Morparia, CEO, South and South East Asia, JPMorgan, says: "India’s vision of creating digital technology driven access to financial services will be incomplete unless we bring these offerings to the lower and middle income segments who are in urgent need of these financial products and services.
"Our initiative aims to identify and nurture fintech start-ups to generate innovative ideas which will help make financial products and services more accessible to this critical mass of Indians."
Applications to join the lab are open.