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In early January 2018, a leading non-governmental organization in the Indian state of Rajasthan was considering an alliance with Airtel Payments Bank Limited (Airtel Payments), the first “payments bank” in India. Although India showed economic growth in key areas, financially inclusive growth was poor. Airtel Payments and its competitors were expected to strengthen financial inclusion with technological expertise, wide distribution networks, and substantial revenue to sustain losses during initial start-up phases of the payments banking Industry in India. Airtel Payments paid a 7.25 per cent interest rate for customer deposits, the highest among the payments banks. However, the non-governmental organization needed to address several questions before initiating an alliance with Airtel Payments for financial inclusion: Could Airtel Payments play a significant role in financial inclusion and help solve India’s persistent age-old issue of last-mile connectivity? Was it viable to offer higher interest rates than competitors? Did the environmental factors favour Airtel Payments? Was the payments bank industry competitive? What would be the impact of Airtel Payments's previous unethical practice of opening bank accounts without informed consent?

In early January 2018, a leading non-governmental organization in the Indian state of Rajasthan was considering an alliance with Airtel Payments Bank Limited (Airtel Payments), the first "payments bank" in India. Although India showed economic growth in key areas, financially inclusive growth was poor. Airtel Payments and its competitors were expected to strengthen financial inclusion with technological expertise, wide distribution networks, and substantial revenue to sustain losses during initial start-up phases of the payments banking Industry in India. Airtel Payments paid a 7.25 per cent interest rate for customer deposits, the highest among the payments banks. However, the non-governmental organization needed to address several questions before initiating an alliance with Airtel Payments for financial inclusion: Could Airtel Payments play a significant role in financial inclusion and help solve India's persistent age-old issue of last-mile connectivity? Was it viable to offer higher interest rates than competitors? Did the environmental factors favour Airtel Payments? Was the payments bank industry competitive? What would be the impact of Airtel Payments's previous unethical practice of opening bank accounts without informed consent?

In the early 1970s BRAC was a startup nongovernmental organization (NGO) working in Bangladesh. By 2014, it was the world's largest NGO. It had a strong presence in Bangladesh and had begun to deliver social development programs in nine other countries. Its founder and chairperson Fazle Hasan Abed was knighted in 2010 by the British Crown for his service in reducing poverty. The organization took a holistic approach to alleviating poverty, which depended on providing the poor with a portfolio of services including education, agriculture development, healthcare, community empowerment, and microfinance. Around 70% of the funding to deliver BRAc's development programs and services came from its own for-profit social enterprises. The case study allows students to examine the organization's evolution and its business model.