Publication: Extending Financial Services with Banking Agents
Loading...
Published
2008-04
ISSN
Date
2012-08-13
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Banking agents are retail vendors, lottery outlets, and post offices-trusted local establishments that can double as a kind of bank branch for their customers, processing everything from bill and pension payments to deposits, withdrawals, and money transfers. Banking agents' lower set-up and running costs promise to help banks and microfinance institutions reach more and poorer people living far from the nearest branch, with more financial products, at lower cost, than traditional microfinance or banking channels. Banking agents process transactions with point-of-sale (POS) card readers, barcode scanners, and sometimes personal computers that connect with the bank's server using a dial-up or other data connection. The clerk at the retail or postal outlet collects and disburses cash and, in some cases, opens bank accounts for new clients and fills in credit applications. The retail outlets earn a portion of the transaction fee. Some generate so much business from handling these transactions that they dedicate an employee to operating the POS device. Some banks use management companies to identify, equip, train, and support banking agents and to assume all liabilities for the cash they handle. These intermediaries are compensated with a portion of the transaction fees.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Siedek, Hannah. 2008. Extending Financial Services with Banking Agents. CGAP Brief. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9523 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Mexico : New Technology-Enabled Channels to Scale Up Financial Access(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2013-03)This is a technical note for the 2011 the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) carried out in Mexico. The focus of this document is the new technology-enabled channels to scale up financial access being employed. Key issues such as a pro-inclusion policy environment and harnessing technology for financial inclusion are discussed. Issues relevant to enabling policy framework, such as new banking regulations for branchless banking, types of licenses, types of accounts, electronic transaction mechanisms, use of banking correspondents outsourcing of operations/IT platforms, as well as other regulations affecting branchless banking propositions, are also elaborated on. Segments are devoted to the market, mobile banking schemes and the consequent recommendations as well.Publication IFC Mobile Money Study 2011(Washington, DC, 2011)Although a number of m-money businesses have emerged around the world, few have reached significant scale. Overall, m-money uptake is limited when contrasted with its apparent promises of reaching the unbanked and underserved, of servicing existing banking clients, and of being a means for a cashless society. This study examines the following in more detail: existing major money flows and the critical mass of low-value, high-volume payment transactions and whether m-money can be used for them (i.e., potential demand); regulatory environment and major obstacles for m-money uptake; business models of partnering institutions; payment behavior of users and nonusers (banked and unbanked), in particular where they receive funds and how they use money, including alternative means; and existing and potential agents networks, their requirements to run m-money as a viable business, and their training needs. This report provides detailed information regarding the five main topics as they relate to Brazil, business models, money flows and demand, potential user perceptions and behavior, regulation, and agent networks.Publication Increasing Revenues for India Post through Expanding Channeling of Financial Services(Washington, DC, 2008-06)This report analyzes possibilities for increasing revenues for India Post through expanding channeling of financial services. The Indian postal network is among the largest networks in the world in terms of area covered and population served, and constitutes an important mechanism of achieving transportation and communication. Within India Post, the Post Office Savings Bank (POSB) is one of the oldest and largest financial institutions (with largest deposit base) in the country. The key objective of POSB is to provide people living in rural, semi-urban, remote and inaccessible areas of the country with an easy and reliable means of making investments, making remittances and operating savings accounts. It is of strategic importance for POSB to increase market-based revenues so as to gain better control of its market orientation and revenue structure. In addition, though POSB still retains competitive advantages over commercial banks, it will not be long before the competition replicates these advantages. Hence, in order to better leverage the vast network of the post offices and huge customer base, India Post requires evaluating the introduction of a wide range of products and services in the financial services area. This will also lead to improvement of the earnings from savings related products vis-a-vis the total earnings. Banks (e.g. foreign, private banks) lack the network infrastructure to reach underserved segments in semi-urban and rural areas. There is a demand for expansion of financial service offerings by the post office. Some products and services which will help India Post increase its revenues have been identified. Some of these products and services have been introduced as localized initiatives by individual circles. However the experience of these local initiatives needs to be shared and, based on India Post's experience, rolled out to other locations.Publication IFC Mobile Money Study 2011(Washington, DC, 2011)Although a number of m-money businesses have emerged around the world, few have reached significant scale. Overall, m-money uptake is limited when contrasted with its apparent promise of reaching the unbanked and underserved, servicing existing banking clients, and being a means for realizing a cashless society. This study examines the following in more detail: existing major money flows and the critical mass of low-value, high-volume payment transactions and whether m-money can be used for them (i.e., potential demand); regulatory environment and major obstacles for m-money uptake; business models of partnering institutions; payment behavior of users and nonusers (banked and unbanked), in particular where they receive funds and how they use money, including alternative means; and existing and potential agents networks, their requirements to run m-money as a viable business, and their training needs. This report provides detailed information on Thailand regarding five main topics, business models, money flows and demand, potential user perceptions and behavior, regulation, and agent networks.Publication Mobile Banking and Financial Inclusion : The Regulatory Lessons(2011-05-01)Mobile banking is growing at a remarkable speed around the world. In the process it is creating considerable uncertainty about the appropriate regulatory response to this newly emerging service. This paper sets out a framework for considering the design of regulation of mobile banking. Since it lies at the interface between financial services and telecoms, mobile banking also raises competition policy and interoperability issues that are discussed in the paper. Finally, by unbundling payments services into its component parts, mobile banking provides important lessons for the design of financial regulation more generally in developed as well as developing economies.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Financial Dependence and International Trade(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2001-05)Does financial development translate into a comparative advantage in industries that use more external finance? The author uses industry-level data on firms' dependence on external finance for 36 industries and 56 countries to examine this question. The author shows that countries with better-developed financial systems have higher export shares and trade balances in industries that use more external finance. These results are robust to the use of alternative measures of external dependence and financial development and are not due to reverse causality or simultaneity bias.Publication The Global Findex Database 2025: Connectivity and Financial Inclusion in the Digital Economy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-16)The Global Findex 2025 reveals how mobile technology is equipping more adults around the world to own and use financial accounts to save formally, access credit, make and receive digital payments, and pursue opportunities. Including the inaugural Global Findex Digital Connectivity Tracker, this fifth edition of Global Findex presents new insights on the interactions among mobile phone ownership, internet use, and financial inclusion. The Global Findex is the world’s most comprehensive database on digital and financial inclusion. It is also the only global source of comparable demand-side data, allowing cross-country analysis of how adults access and use mobile phones, the internet, and financial accounts to reach digital information and resources, save, borrow, make payments, and manage their financial health. Data for the Global Findex 2025 were collected from nationally representative surveys of about 145,000 adults in 141 economies. The latest edition follows the 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2021 editions and includes new series measuring mobile phone ownership and internet use, digital safety, and frequency of transactions using financial services. The Global Findex 2025 is an indispensable resource for policy makers in the fields of digital connectivity and financial inclusion, as well as for practitioners, researchers, and development professionals.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.Publication The Pros and Cons of Agent Banking(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-05)This study seeks to estimate the effects of access to agent banking on opening and usage of a savings account in urban and peri-urban areas in Senegal. A randomly selected group of individuals were given information about a savings account. Half of the individuals were encouraged to open the account at the nearest agent, while the other half were encouraged to do so at the closest branch. In addition, half of the individuals in each of these two groups were also given a monetary incentive to open the account. Study participants thus fall into one of five groups: (i) offered information about the account (Info), monetary incentives to open it (Incentives), and told to open it at the branch (Branch); ii) info, incentives and told to open it with an agent (Agent), (iii) info, no Incentives and branch (iv) info, no incentives and agent and (v) no info.Publication Banking with Agents(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2018-04)This paper uses a randomized controlled trial to study the effects of access to agent banking. Individuals were encouraged to open an account and transact at a banking agent or a branch of a financial institution. Compared with individuals who were sent to the branch, individuals sent to an agent increased the number of transactions and incurred lower transaction costs with the agent. These transactions are, however, only half as large as those made at the branch because branch tellers are less likely to share information about clients with others. Banking with agents thus entails a trade-off between lower transaction costs and lack of privacy.