UK learning from India's work in financial inclusion: London Lord Mayor

Scope for UK green finance investments in India, says Nicholas Lyons

The United Kingdom is looking at India’s expertise as it seeks to improve access to financial services for those at the bottom of the pyramid.

“There was particular interest in financial inclusion. I am impressed with the unbanked population in India using digital platforms for accessing core financial products. That is something that we (UK) needs to learn from,” Nicholas Lyons, the Lord Mayor of the City of London, told Business Standard on Tuesday. The Lord Mayor is an international ambassador for the UK's financial and professional services sector.

The UK has 17 million people who have life savings of less than 100 pounds. As many as15 million people in employment do not have money further than the next week. Many people are excluded from the financial system, Lyons said.

Lyons will hold a conference in October 2023 in London on numeracy, financial literacy and inclusion to come out with a set of recommendations.

Lyons, who started his one-year stint as the Lord Mayor in November 2022, is in India this week covering Mumbai and Delhi. In Mumbai, he is meeting top officials at Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Securities Exchange Board of India on the range of issues including financial inclusion and bilateral regulatory relations.

His visit coincides with the eighth round of four day India-UK talks on a free trade agreement. He is not involved in these negotiations that started on Tuesday in Delhi.

Lyons said there is scope for UK green finance investments in India, as London is an important market for sustainable bonds. More than half of masala bonds-- rupee-denominated bonds issued outside India by Indian entities--have been issued out of London. While there has not been much activity for some time, there will be desire again to issue them. India needs access to capital markets and investors, and London is right centre for it.

On regulatory collaboration, he said there is a lot going on here as "you get your teeth into" climate change and environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG). The RBI is doing stress testing on banks and institutions just to look at how they are getting on with climate change etc. This is a work that other jurisdictions have been working on for a while.

The UK is ahead of many other jurisdictions on this. There are strong relationships between RBI, Prudential Regulation Authority and Bank of England. This is not something which is going to create revenues one way or the other but it creates a better market place, he said.