Digitization of Financial Services in Rural India (Pre-doc to PhD)

Impact of digitization of financial services on credit provision in rural areas
Digitization of financial services in rural areas of India offers both opportunities and challenges. On the one hand, digitization facilitates tailored and customized financial products that respond to the diverse needs of agricultural households, women’s groups, and cooperatives. On the other, it allows scalable and affordable outreach, making credit accessible to previously excluded communities. The research investigates how such tailored digital credit products compare to standard one-size-fits-all microfinance models, what their impacts are on livelihood resilience, and what implications they hold for sustainability and financial inclusion.

Description and objectives of the Pre-doc (3 moths) and PhD project (if continued)
The objectives of the pre-doc phase are to (i) Map the digital services of a project partner organization in India; (ii) Conduct qualitative impact assessments through focus groups, and (iii) Assess the structure, quality, and scale of data to inform feasibility and design of future impact assessment. This phase is designed to generate proposals for stand-alone academic contributions that will form the foundation for the later PhD research.

The objectives of the PhD Project (if continued) are to: (i) Assess perceptions of existing business models among borrowers and project partners; (ii) Analyse impacts of financial services on producers and enterprises; (iii) Compare outcomes with other financial providers (including cross-continental learning opportunities in Africa); and (iv) Identify enabling and constraining factors for scaling digital financial services in rural contexts.

You will work here
Hosting arrangements
At Wageningen university, the PhD is integrated in the Business Economics group and the Development Economics group. In India, this is with CIAT. The pre-doc position entails 3 months. The PhD-position (if continued) embraces an additional 48 months.

We are looking for a highly motivated (MSc) postgraduate with the following profile:

• Excellent MSc degree in economics, agricultural economics, business economics, sustainability studies, or related fields.
• Strong analytical and econometric skills; experience with R, STATA or similar software.
• Ability to manage and analyse large and complex datasets.
• Experience with participatory research methods is a plus.
• Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a multi-disciplinary team.
• Proficiency in spoken and written English (C1 level or equivalent).
• Affinity with rural development, digital lending, rural financing, agricultural businesses, and India (preferred).

The mission of Wageningen University & Research is “To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life”. Under the banner Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen University and the specialised research institutes of the Wageningen Research Foundation have joined forces in contributing to finding solutions to important questions in the domain of healthy food and living environment. With its roughly 30 branches, 7,600 employees (6,700 fte) and 13,100 students and over 150,000 participants to WUR’s Life Long Learning, Wageningen University & Research is one of the leading organisations in its domain. The unique Wageningen approach lies in its integrated approach to issues and the collaboration between different disciplines.

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