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CHENNAI: Disha Financial Counseling, a pioneering initiative in consumer credit counseling, has announced the launch of its Chennai branch. Managed by Disha Trust, set up under the aegis of ICICI Trusteeship Services Ltd., it provides financial education, credit counseling and debt management services to consumers free of cost, irrespective of the bank the consumer deals with. F. R. Joseph, Regional Director, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Chennai, said that for the last two years, the RBI has been giving lot of importance to ‘financial inclusion’ and the first project was set up in Puducherry covering 1.80 lakh accounts. In Tamil Nadu, Cuddalore was selected and two lakh fresh accounts were created. “To facilitate financial inclusion, we need financial education, which was the need of the hour especially for rural households,” Mr. Joseph said. B. Madhivanan, Senior General Manager, ICICI Bank, said this initiative would help in introducing financial literacy in India at the grassroots level. Disha would benefit the general public in numerous ways as it would increase the awareness among people about financial products, thus promoting better understanding and more informed decisions. The credit counseling centres would also assist consumers to pro-actively manage their debt through out-of-court procedures based on agreed repayment plan between creditors and debtors. The response from fellow banks to the financial counseling initiative has been phenomenal, Mr. Madhivanan said. Disha had established centres in Ahmedabad, Delhi, Kanpur, Ludhiana, Mumbai and Hyderabad and the plan was to open at least 25 centres in the near future, he said.
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