One of the chronic issues with most of the mobile banking implementations has been to create a compelling business case for the agents/ retailers. This is possible only when the agents have significant volume of transactions and offer a suite of products through their outlet. Piyush Gupta, Vice President — Business Development at Eko discusses the parameters basis which such a product suite could be put together.
One of the chronic issues with most of the mobile banking implementations has been to create a compelling business case for the agents/ retailers. This is possible only when the agents have significant volume of transactions and offer a suite of products through their outlet. Piyush Gupta, Vice President — Business Development at Eko discusses the parameters basis which such a product suite could be put together. He talks about the recent initiatives taken up by Eko through institutional partnerships with government departments and microfinance institutions, and his take on offering non-financial services such as health through m-banking agents.
This case study highlights the SHG-BC model, how the model can be further improved, and factors that contributed to the success of the model.
“Krishna Kumar, GM-Marketing at Vodafone Essar talks about the unique advantages that an MNO has and how they seek to leverage them to repeat their African success in India. These are their wide distribution network, telecom network and strong brand.
In the India Focus Note 102 we highlighted some of the challenges associated with pursuing a “bank managed/supervised” approach to agent networks in the business correspondent model. In this Note, we explore how banks can potentially address some of these challenges. This is discussed by looking at different aspects of the way a bank must manage its agent network and is completed with a case study of State Bank of India which has excelled in developing its bank-managed agent network. The Note looks at: Operational integration of the agent network with bank branches Equipping branch staff to understand and play their role in agent network management Integration of technology platforms Setting up agent support systems: structure, staffing, liquidity management and technology.
Building and managing an agent network independently is not an easy task for banks. The task is challenging since banks have to develop competencies and support systems required to build and manage the network, address standardisation and scalability issues, reduce dependency and workload of branch staff, balance roles and responsibilities, reduce turn around time, and train agents and staff. This paper discusses the challenges banks are likely to face in building and managing their own agent networks. These include: The speed that banks are able to scale an agent network Achieving standardisation across the network The challenges of coordination The problems of relying on busy branch staff Establishing support and monitoring systems for the agent network Building management information systems for the agent network