Published Paper Details:

Financial inclusion is defined as the availability and equality of opportunities to access financial services. It refers to a process by which individuals and businesses can access appropriate, affordable and timely financial products and services. These include banking, loan, equity and insurance products. Financial inclusion efforts typically target those who are unbanked and under banked and directs sustainable financial services to them. Financial inclusion is understood to go beyond merely opening a bank account. A normal perception is that, the concept of financial inclusion emerged and became prominent only after 2005. But a careful analysis of commercial banks nationalization process which took place during 1969, has already sown the seeds of financial inclusion in our country. The process of nationalization was inevitable, so as to safeguard the Indian economy from the evils of financial arrangements of our country, which were prevalent during that time. There was a high concentration of commercial banks only to few places and loans and advances were given only to a handful of people. There was absolutely no standarisation of guidelines, which are supposed to be followed, while lending a loan or an advance. During that situation, nationalizing them (a process in which, the ownership and control was transferred from private to government) was the only solution. But a careful analysis of the achievement observed after nationalization reveals the fact that, the process of nationalization also carried the seeds of financial inclusion, bringing those unbanked people under the ambit of banking services. This paper tries to analyse the causes, the process and achievement of nationalization scheme, which took place in India, during 1969.