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This paper describes the common financing challenges faced by micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in India and some important measures taken to address them, with a focus on the credit rating scheme implemented in 2000. It examines the usefulness as well as the limitations of the scheme, drawing on interviews with rating agencies and MSMEs. The analysis indicates that with credit rating being an expensive exercise, the availability of government subsidies under the scheme has been an important factor in encouraging MSMEs to get themselves rated, thereby reducing information asymmetry with banks and enabling access to credit. Given the large number of unbanked MSMEs in the country, leveraging the data generated by MSME lending and credit rating in the country through the creation of a credit risk database is necessary. Lenders will then be able to tap into the collective data generated in order to make more informed credit decisions with regard to MSMEs without relying on subsidies.

Microfinance institutions can enhance their contribution to financial inclusion promotion by expanding their suite of financial services, participating in a credit bureau, and providing portability of accounts, greater flexibility in operation, and financial literacy training.

The policy literature has long recognized the inherent need for a program to fit the unique conditions found in a certain context. We present a theory of institutional contextualism that focuses on the mechanisms by which actors adapt a policy design to fit a situation. We conceptualize institutions as phenomena that are constituted by a constant dialectic between text (the general blueprint) and context (the particular setting). The first half of this dialectic, which is the diffusion of the constitutive text or norm onto the institutional setting, has been discussed in the literature. Our research focuses on the second half, and we delineate, in concept, mechanisms for fitting the program to the local context. We then use a case study of improvised microfinance programs in Tamil Nadu, India, to illustrate how this occurs in reality. The research underscores the unexamined link between effective governance and contextual fit and offers a typology of mechanisms for fit that should inform future research. Adapted from the source document.