Banks can do more on the Business Correspondent front
G E Balajee, IFMR Blog Team in conversation with Abhishek Sinha, CEO, Eko India Financial Services Private Limited on the Business Correspondent model, its challenges and prospect.
Taking banking to the last mile
Efforts to promote financial inclusion achieved momentum in the country with the RBI guidelines in January 2006, allowing appointment of non-bank Business Correspondents (BC) as agents for the delivery of financial services outside bank branches.
Missing links in financial inclusion
Infrastructure facilities such as clearing houses, depositories, stock exchanges, and commodity exchanges are the backbone of any financial system.
Barriers in delivering finance
Though India has deep financial infrastructure comprising a large number of bank and post-office branches; agricultural cooperative societies; and, now, micro finance institutions; there still remain gaps that have prevented us from leveraging the full potential of this financial infrastructure.
‘For-Profit’ companies as Business Correspondents?
The Reserve Bank of India has opened a discussion in its website to see if there is a case for allowing banks to engage ‘for-profit’ companies as well as NBFCs as their Business Correspondents.
Correspondent Banking in Brazil
Olympia A. De Castro from IFMR Capital gave us an insight on the correspondent banking model in Brazil that led to some interesting comparison debates with the Indian model.
NGOs as Business Correspondents
IFMR Finance Foundation (IFF), which recently came out with a plan for commercial banks to deepen financial access using the Business Correspondent (BC) model , is now working on an action plan to roll out the model extensively across India.
Deepening Financial Access in India – A Blue Print for Commercial Banks
While endeavouring to deepen financial access in India, the enormity of the problem, that is, the vast number of financially excluded people to be reached, has been emphasised time and again.
