Mumbai: Visiting Dutch queen Maxima, who is also the UN Secretary General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, praised the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) work on financial inclusion.
"(The RBI has) one of the most comprehensive and forward looking visions on financial inclusion around the globe," the UN special envoy told reporters here after meeting RBI top brass, including Governor Raghuram Rajan.
"The RBI has been doing an incredible work during the last five to 10 years on it," she said.
Maxima said that there is a lot to learn from the Indian experience on financial inclusion. "What is extremely important is to take India's example around the world. I think there is a lot to be learnt from the Indian experience," she said.
Maxima said a lot had changed in India during the past five years, since her last visit here, after taking over as the UN special envoy, and specifically pointed to deeper penetration of mobilephones and awareness about financial literacy as well as consumer protection as "positive changes".
She said India has been learning from its peers in the developing world which carried out similar programmes. She specifically said that India could learn from the Brazilian experience.
On a question about relying on banks, she said that having more people is better.
Answering a specific question about the approach to financial institution and if it ought to be made mandatory or voluntary for institutions, she said that viability of the model is the most important aspect.
