Rashmi Pillai

Rashmi Pillai is executive director of FSD Uganda. Ms. Pillai has 13 years of experience in digital financial services, social enterprise and impact investing. She has worked with regulators, private sector entities and development partners across multiple South Asian and East African countries. Ms. Pillai's digital finance advisory efforts have ranged from guiding policy makers on payment digitization, Fintechs on cash-in, cash-out agent placement, mobile network operators on merchant payments, to bankers on shared agency banking.

Ms. Pillai is also the co-founder of the Sankalp Forum, one of the largest social impact forums in the world that began in India in 2009 and today has expanded to multiple Asian and East African countries.

Ms. Pillai is a Fulbright Scholar and holds a post-graduate degree in public policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. She also holds a Masters in Spectroscopic Physics and a Bachelors in Physics from India.

By Rashmi Pillai

Blog

4 Next-Gen Fintech Models Bridging the Small Business Credit Gap

There is a staggering $4.9 trillion financing gap for micro and small businesses in emerging markets. These fintech models stand out for their ability to solve small businesses' credit needs at scale.
Blog

$4.9 Trillion Small Business Credit Gap: Digital Models to the Rescue

CGAP estimates that there is a $4.9 trillion credit gap for micro and small businesses in emerging markets.
Blog

The Case for Off-Grid Solar Companies as Mobile Money Agents

Off-grid solar companies could boost revenue and reach more low-income customers by becoming master mobile money agents in remote areas.
Blog

Building Payment Rails in Frontier Areas Through Off-Grid Solar

Many off-grid solar companies are familiarizing customers with digital payments and helping them find mobile money agents. Should they go a step further and start managing agent networks?
Research

Digitizing Agricultural Payments: Uganda's Coffee Value Chain

This is the story of how the United Nations Mobile Money for the Poor in Uganda worked with a coffee exporter to digitize one of the country’s most important cash crops. Learn about the dynamics of digitizing agricultural value chains and how organizations from different sectors worked to digitize Uganda’s coffee value chain.