SSC CGL 2024 Tier-I · 9 September 2024, Shift 1 · General Awareness · Question 5 of 100

Text as printed on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; answer per SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 6 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. The questions and options here are reproduced as printed on a candidate's own response sheet for this shift — the Commission's text, unchanged. Each answer is SSC's tentative key as marked on that sheet; SSC allowed challenges to it and never publishes a final key. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

___________ is an industry association and self-regulatory organisation (SRO) whose primary objective is to work towards the robust development of the microfinance sector.

(a)NABARD
(b)Self-help Group Association
(c)Microfinance and Investments Regulatory Authority
(d)Microfinance Institutions Network

Answer

Why

Correct — D. The Microfinance Institutions Network (MFIN) is the industry association of NBFC-MFIs and other microfinance lenders, and the Reserve Bank of India recognises it as a Self-Regulatory Organisation for the sector.

That double role is precisely what the stem describes — it represents its members and it also enforces a code of conduct and handles grievances, sparing the regulator the first line of supervision. Sa-Dhan is the other RBI-recognised SRO in the same space.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
NABARD — NABARD is an apex development bank for agriculture and rural development. It refinances and supervises rural credit institutions — a public institution above the sector, not an association formed by its members.
(b)
Self-help Group Association — There is no national body called the Self-help Group Association. SHGs are village-level savings-and-credit groups linked to banks under NABARD's SHG-Bank Linkage Programme, not members of one named association.
(c)
Microfinance and Investments Regulatory Authority — No such regulator exists. Microfinance lenders are regulated by the RBI itself, and this name is built to sound statutory — an unfamiliar 'Regulatory Authority' in an option list deserves suspicion, not trust.

Concept

A Self-Regulatory Organisation sits between the regulator and the regulated. The RBI recognises it, the industry funds and staffs it, and it runs the code of conduct, the data reporting and the grievance redress that would otherwise reach the regulator directly.

For microfinance the layering is: the RBI regulates NBFC-MFIs, while MFIN and Sa-Dhan carry the conduct layer as recognised SROs.

Read the stem as a definition, not as a memory test. 'Industry association and self-regulatory organisation' rules out a development bank and a regulator by description alone, before you recall anything about MFIN.

Key facts

MFIN is an industry association of microfinance lenders and an RBI-recognised Self-Regulatory Organisation.
Sa-Dhan is the other RBI-recognised SRO for the microfinance sector.
NABARD is a development bank for agriculture and rural credit, not an SRO.
NBFC-MFIs are regulated by the Reserve Bank of India.

Study next

RBI's Master Direction on the regulatory framework for microfinance loans, 2022SHG-Bank Linkage Programme and NABARD's role in itHow an SRO differs from a statutory regulator and from a trade body

Common traps

Marking NABARD because it is the name most associated with rural credit.
Reading 'self-regulatory organisation' as a government regulator and choosing the invented Authority.

Microfinance recurs across shifts as a definition item rather than as policy detail — also asked 11 Sep 2024, 16:00, General Awareness Q.15 (what microfinance is) and 23 Sep 2024, 16:00, General Awareness Q.4 (SHGs against MFIs).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.