E/M-Banking in India: State of the Agent Network

This MicroSave presentation discusses findings from a qualitative survey of electronic and mobile banking agents in India. The study covers 99 urban agents and 105 rural agents across ten states and six banks. The presentation discusses topics such as agent profiles, value proposition for agents, operations and marketing support, agent profitability, and good practices. The study reveals that most agents are entrepreneurs with small mobile prepaid shops or related service business such as bills payment or ticketing. Most agents invest between INR 10,000 to 50,000 in the business. Findings include:

• Developing the business case for agents requires improvement in service quality by improving compensation, cash management, technology, operations support, and marketing;
• Delay in rural agents commissions is a significant reason for their limited efforts in customer acquisition;
• Low daily transactions of rural agents compared to their urban counterparts affects profits and motivation;
• Frequent visits by bank staff can help in customer acquisition and business;
• Multi product offerings are profitable both in rural and urban areas;
• Remuneration of banking correspondent agents can be enhanced by enabling more products through them.