The story of a digitised India being catalysed through Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is all around us through examples like UPI and Aadhaar, but they have an equally critical role to play in enabling the economic powerhouse that are MSMEs.

MSMEs are a popular topic, and one we have discussed a few times on Decoding Impact itself, but in this episode of we are trying to understand the role DPIs can play in enabling greater and more effective access to capital for MSMEs. To share his expert inputs on the podcast, host Rathish Balakrishnan speaks to Mr. Neelkanth Mishra, Chief Economist, Axis Bank and Head of Global Research, Axis Capital. Mr. Mishra helps us understand: • The context of MSMEs in India today • The existing capital access and supporting infrastructure, including global examples • The key tailwinds that can enable MSMEs to grow, like DPI

Through out Mr. Mishra shares tangible examples for how MSMEs operate, can scale, and their challenges. Tune in to the latest episode of Decoding Impact today!

Explore some of our SKI products related to this topic: • SKI Content on Digital Public Infrastructure and Goods

• Decoding Digital Public Goods & Digital Public Infrastructure with Dr. Pramod Varma

• Decoding India’s DPI Learnings for the Global South with Prof. S Rajagopalan

• Decoding Account Aggregators with Shalini Gupta

Guest: Neelkanth Mishra Host: Rathish Balakrishnan Producer: Meenakshi Iyer Produced by: Pickle Jar Media Chapters: 00:00 - Precap 01:21 - Welcome 01:31 - Topic and Guest Intro 03:04 - Neelkanth Mishra's journey from engineer to economist 05:42 - How will MSMEs contribute to India's 2047 vision? 08:44 - Understanding the role of micro enterprises amongst MSMEs 11:36 - Enabling MSMEs to flourish 15:22 - The mix of micro, small, and medium enterprises 20:15 - MSME's current access to capital & challenges 26:22 - Does India have the plumbing to enable small & growing businesses? 30:10 - The debt capital needed for MSMEs 34:31 - How countries have funded MSMEs traditionally 44:21 - How India is enabling MSMEs through technology 48:44 - Three key areas to unlock value for MSMEs through DPIs 58:34 - Solving for the MSME access to capital problem at scale 01:02:10 - What is the promise of DPI moving forward? 01:05:08 - Summary and thanks