A major challenge that the financial inclusion space in India faces is the limited capability of clients to use financial services/products offered by various financial institutions, including micro-finance institutions. Limited financial literacy has resulted in a slow movement towards creating a financially inclusive society.

Grameen Foundation aims at increasing financial inclusion and financial capabilities of the poor by developing programs that give them access to financial services, and strengthens their knowledge and skills on the need for financial management. To this end, the organization works with a mobile money provider and local microfinance institution, Sonata, to deliver mobile banking services and financial education to the MFI’s women borrowers in Uttar Pradesh. The aim of the project is to get the women borrowers to use mobiles as a tool for loan repayment.

As of May 2016, the program has reached out to over 23,222 clients training them on mobile financial services; more than 7050 have made at least one repayment using DFS. The payment option has been introduced at over 12 branches of Sonata. As of August 2016, transactions worth INR 1.6 cr have been routed through Oxigen.