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The agent in a transformational m-banking ecosystem: interface or intermediary?

Published: 07 December 2013 Publication History

Abstract

The bank-led branchless banking model in India was born out of a national financial inclusion mandate that seeks to connect unbanked populations to formal financial services. This is implemented through a transformational, hybrid infrastructure that extends outreach via low-scale banking structures. These low-scale banking structures take banking services out of the brick-and-mortar bank branches and into the hands of non-bank agents (or business correspondents) that can now drive uptake in unserved regions on the branchless banking platform. This note demonstrates the results of a study that looked at Eko, one of the prominent mobile banking business correspondents in India, in its collaboration with the largest public sector bank in the country. In particular, this note will focus on the role of their retail agent network and how certain informal, frequently unstipulated, practices on their part may help in acquiring and retaining customers on the platform. In this way, the retail agent network may indeed help in sustaining the transformational mobile banking ecosystem.

References

[1]
Mas, I. The Economics of Branchless Banking. Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, 4, 2 (2009), 57--75.
[2]
Porteous, D. The enabling environment for mobile banking in Africa. London: DFID (2006).
[3]
Mor, N. and Ananth, B. Inclusive Financial Systems: Some Design Principles and a Case Study. Economic and Political Weekly (2007), 1121--1126.
[4]
Ghosh, I. and Bajpai, K. The Business Correspondent Model in India: Technology Service Providers as BCs. In Proceedings of the World IT Forum, International Federation for Information Processing (New Delhi, India, 2012)
[5]
Flaming, M., McKay, C. and Pickens, M. Agent management toolkit: building a viable network of branchless banking agents. Technical Guide. Washington, DC: Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) (2011).
[6]
Mas, I. and Siedek, H. Banking Through Networks of Retail Agents. CGAP Microfinance Gateway, 2008.
[7]
Medhi, I., Ratan, A. and Toyama, K. Mobile-banking adoption and usage by low-literate, low-income users in the developing world. Springer, City, (2009).
[8]
Morawczynski, O. and Miscione, G. Examining trust in mobile banking transactions: The case of M-PESA in Kenya. Springer, City, 2008.
[9]
Mas, I. and Morawczynski, O. Designing mobile money services lessons from M-PESA. Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, 4, 2 (2009), 77--91.
[10]
Lyman, T., Ivatury, G. and Staschen, S. Use of agents in branchless banking for the poor: rewards, risks, and regulation. Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, Focus Note, 38 (2006).

Cited By

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  • (2023)Digital financial services and human development: current landscape and research prospectsInformation Technology for Development10.1080/02681102.2023.219918929:4(582-606)Online publication date: 5-May-2023
  • (2020)The Social Network: How People with Visual Impairment use Mobile Phones in Kibera, KenyaProceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3313831.3376658(1-15)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2020
  • (2017)PrayanaProceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development10.1145/3136560.3136591(1-5)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2017
  • Show More Cited By

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  1. The agent in a transformational m-banking ecosystem: interface or intermediary?

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        cover image ACM Other conferences
        ICTD '13: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Information and Communications Technologies and Development: Notes - Volume 2
        December 2013
        214 pages
        ISBN:9781450319072
        DOI:10.1145/2517899
        Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

        Sponsors

        • IPID: International Network for Postgraduate Students in the area of ICT4D
        • University of the Western Cape: University of the Western Cape
        • Nokia
        • Google Inc.
        • Microsoft: Microsoft
        • University of Cape Town
        • Microsoft Reasearch: Microsoft Reasearch
        • IDRC: International Development Research Centre
        • IBM: IBM

        Publisher

        Association for Computing Machinery

        New York, NY, United States

        Publication History

        Published: 07 December 2013

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        Author Tags

        1. agents
        2. financial inclusion
        3. mobile banking

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        • Research-article

        Funding Sources

        • Institute of Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion at UC Irvine

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        ICTD 2013
        Sponsor:
        • IPID
        • University of the Western Cape
        • Microsoft
        • Microsoft Reasearch
        • IDRC
        • IBM

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        Overall Acceptance Rate 22 of 116 submissions, 19%

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        Cited By

        View all
        • (2023)Digital financial services and human development: current landscape and research prospectsInformation Technology for Development10.1080/02681102.2023.219918929:4(582-606)Online publication date: 5-May-2023
        • (2020)The Social Network: How People with Visual Impairment use Mobile Phones in Kibera, KenyaProceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3313831.3376658(1-15)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2020
        • (2017)PrayanaProceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development10.1145/3136560.3136591(1-5)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2017
        • (2017)Working Digital Money into a Cash EconomyComputer Supported Cooperative Work10.1007/s10606-017-9289-626:4-6(733-768)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2017
        • (2016)Contextualizing Intermediated Use in the Developing WorldProceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/2858036.2858594(355-359)Online publication date: 7-May-2016
        • (2015)The persistence of paperProceedings of the Seventh International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development10.1145/2737856.2738029(1-10)Online publication date: 15-May-2015

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