Reserve Bank of India survey finds 47 percent of banking agents ‘untraceable’

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

The success of the government’s thrust on financial inclusion, which largely hinges on the role played by business correspondents (BCs), is faced with a harsh reality check.

A recent survey conducted by the RBI College for Agriculture Banking and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) reveals that not only were a substantive number of banking agents untraceable, but that even among those found to be working, a significant number have never conducted even a single transaction.

According to the survey, which tried to contact 2,358 agents across 15 large states in the period between September and November 2013, only 53 per cent could be reached and the remaining 47 per cent could not be reached.

Even among those who could be reached, 198 (16 per cent of that) agents have not done a single transaction till date. Experts say that there is more of an account opening exercise that is currently going on rather than the real task of focussing on financial inclusion.

While the government and the RBI claims that they have over 2.2 lakh banking agents, experts say that the survey suggests that the quality of the same is terrible.

“Our assessment is that the Ministry of Finance and the RBI have relied far too heavily on a target-driven approach to financial inclusion, whereby the RBI mandates that banks open a minimum number of accounts in poor and rural areas. This has led to ‘card rampages’, with banks aggressively opening accounts to meet their targets, but investing little in establishing high-quality agent networks that encourage account usage,” said Daniel Radcliffe, senior program officer with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is a member organisation of CGAP.

Source: The Financial Express (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Impact Assessment
Tags
business development, financial inclusion