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Branchless banking is a new digitalization of artificial intelligence (AI) for future banking services. The rapid digitalization and technological advancement of financial institutions (FI) have changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Such branchless banks are expected to offer financial customers meaningful access whilst promoting responsible usage of suitable and affordable financial solutions. The objectives of this paper are to identify CSF to conduct branchless banking for bank performance during the attack of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. These CSFs are important to reinforce the new business model recommended by the central bank of Malaysia (BNM). Through this study five CSFs have been identified which are customers do not physically attend to the bank for their banking needs, it is more efficient, saves time, secured, and low cost. As the industrial revolution (IR) 4.0 approaches, public acceptance, innovation, and strong financial services, as well as demand of digital payment will take over the country. National savings bank (BSN) was officially the first bank in Malaysia to conduct branchless banking through agent banking. In line with the BNM division strategy 2011–2020, BSN had launched banking beyond branches via BSN agents who offer banking services on behalf of BSN.

Service-based organizations such as banks have expanded their reach and operations to include various products, services, and more importantly, different market segments. Though brand, marketing efforts, and management concepts (such as mission and vision) have added to this expansion, so do the efforts of agent banking. Agent banking services act as a liaison between bank(s) and consumer(s), thereby allowing banks to reach consumers. Though literature indicates numerous advantages and challenges of agent banking services, the potential benefits are significant. This paper addresses the factors relating to using agent banking over traditional channels for consumers at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) segment of Bangladesh. Data was collected from an industrial sub-district of Bangladesh. The findings indicate variables from the Social Exchange Theory (SET) were appropriate to understand the intention to use agent banking services. Furthermore, the study revealed that reciprocity plays a role in the use of agent banking services. Therefore, banks (and other service providers) can use the results to both understand and design marketing strategies to increase trust and usage of agent banking services even further (i.e., in Bangladesh or other parts of the world). The paper also serves as an extension to prior literature on intention to use services

The purpose of this research paper is to study the present status of e-commerce industry in Bangladesh and finding out comprehensive model based solution for the expansion of the sector spreading e-commerce all over the country. SWOT analysis has been conducted and business expansion model has been developed from the data generated from surveying to the reputed e-commerce business organizations and customers of e-commerce. Primary data has been collected from the top level management of e-commerce business organizations and e-commerce customers as interviewees while secondary data have been collected from Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission reports, relevant literature etc. This study identifies that e-commerce intermediation and channel conflict are the great problems in case of e-commerce business expansion that increases the price level of the products and services but can not reach mass people outside the mega cities as Dhaka. That is why a value chain based business expansion model has been proposed to reach the mass people of Bangladesh for inclusive e-commerce through e-commerce agent. The study will provide insights to the policy makers to work with e-commerce business expansion in the process of digitization of Bangladesh.

This paper discusses the business correspondent (BC)-agent banking model in India against the backdrop of community-based rural livelihood programs, its relevance in facilitating financial inclusion in underserved rural geographies, and its potential to address the gender gap in financial inclusion. In recent years, India has made significant progress toward financial inclusion with the support of technological and policy innovations, but there remains a gap in access to basic banking services for women, particularly rural women. The launch of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) in 2014 resulted in the opening of 420 million bank accounts, of which 53.26% belonged to women, though surveys have suggested that almost 55% of women remained registered inactive users. The World Banksupported rural livelihood programs in India have been instrumental in the institutional strengthening of 6.9 million women's self-help groups (SHGs) and have facilitated their access to savings and credit to the tune of US$3.7 billion (INR260 billion) and US$56 billion (INR3600 billion), respectively, while creating an ecosystem for the deployment of female members as BC agents across rural India. The paper uses a gender and technology lens to explore the role of female banking agents in facilitating access to social security transfers using fingerprint-based biometric authentication solutions during the nationwide pandemicrelated lockdown in India between March 2020 and July 2020. Using data from multiple small samples of banking agents, this paper describes the on-the-ground challenges observed in the provision of basic banking services to access cash transfers during the pandemic. Extrapolating from this experience, the paper makes a case for strengthening the agent banking ecosystem, improving the delivery architecture for direct benefit transfers (DBTs), encouraging competition between banking service providers, and providing demand-based financial products and services to expand gender-focused financial inclusion further.

This paper uses a unique data set with 1.1 million customer transactions from a microfinance institution in the Democratic Republic of Congo from 2017 to 2018. The paper provides evidence of assortative gender matching in agent banking transactions, as clients prefer to transact with agents of their own gender. Female clients show a robust preference for female agents even when they are less available, particularly when making high-value transactions and when they have higher account balances. The underrepresentation of female agents may contribute to the persistent gender gap in financial access and usage.

The World Bank has been supporting the Ministry of Labor, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA) in their efforts to bring about reforms in the administration and efficient delivery of social security programs. Several countries have been using technological advances in banking as well as telecommunications to digitize and improve welfare delivery programs. Electronic payments have the potential to improve client experience and reduce program costs. Social protection (SP) and social assistance (SA), programs will benefit by moving from current models of cash disbursement to non-cash, direct-to-account electronic payment models. This report provides an assessment of the status of social protection payments in Vietnam, the legal and regulatory framework, and the technical infrastructure for electronic payments and discusses steps towards implementation of digital payment for social protection programs in Vietnam. After assessing payment infrastructure, regulatory framework, and program policies, some significant changes are proposed to enable a transition from cash to non-cash payments. There are also several next steps for MoLISA and VSS to take right away, in addition to actions needed by other key stakeholders.

This paper uses a randomized controlled trial to study the effects of access to agent banking. Individuals were encouraged to open an account and transact at a banking agent or a branch of a financial institution. Compared with individuals who were sent to the branch, individuals sent to an agent increased the number of transactions and incurred lower transaction costs with the agent. These transactions are, however, only half as large as those made at the branch because branch tellers are less likely to share information about clients with others. Banking with agents thus entails a trade-off between lower transaction costs and lack of privacy.

China has achieved remarkable success in financial inclusion. China’s rate of account ownership – a basic metric of financial inclusion – has increased significantly in the past two decades and is now on par with that of other G-20 countries. Traditional financial service providers have dramatically increased the reach of the formal financial sector, including through the world’s largest agent banking network. China has also been an established leader in the fintech revolution, with new technology-driven providers transforming how millions of Chinese consumers make payments, borrow, save, invest, and insure themselves against risk. This report examines in detail China’s approach to financial inclusion over the past 15 years. The report benchmarks China’s progress against peer economies and analyzes key developments and factors in China’s financial inclusion experience. The report also outlines remaining challenges to achieving further advances in financial inclusion in China, and distills key lessons policymakers from other countries can learn from China’s experience. The report was written jointly by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and the World Bank Group.

Malaysia has achieved one of the highest levels of financial inclusion among Southeast Asia countries, due in part to policies taking advantage of mobile phones and banking agents to expand access. The report looks at specific actions, programs, and strategies that have contributed to enhance financial inclusion in the country and highlights key learnings to benefit low- and middle-income countries with similar ambitions. The report also notes that there is no single factor that can explain Malaysia's success in financial inclusion. The progress that Malaysia has achieved is the result of efforts undertaken by authorities and the financial sector industry over the past 20 years. The country has been able to achieve sustainable growth of its financial system over a long period of time, reconciling two policy objectives, namely "financial stability" and "financial inclusion", in a successful manner so far. Malaysia faces two main challenges in terms of financial inclusion. First Malaysia will need to reach out to the remaining under-served population. Secondly, a major challenge is how to ensure that the people with access to financial services actually make active use of their accounts.

The paper provides evidence on the number and volume of financial transactions undertaken by agents (local businesses that double as more convenient, lower cost alternatives to formal branches) of the largest microfinance institution operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo. More important than agents’ personal characteristics, transactions are higher in low-income, densely populated areas with high levels of commercial development. This finding suggests that the agent network has been best at supporting financial transactions among the urban poor. In addition, branding and effective liquidity management are strongly linked to agent activity.

The Brazilian banking correspondent network has been a topic of study for already a decade, due to its well-documented success in improving access to financial services in remote areas. The marginal but growing role of credit unions in the usage of correspondents has not received much attention from academics, despite the appraised importance of credit unions in finance of proximity. This thesis takes a multi-method approach to perform an exploratory research of credit union correspondents in Brazil. The research objective is two-fold, aiming, from one side, at understanding the incentives of credit unions for contracting correspondents and, from the other, at evaluating whether credit union correspondents improve financial inclusion. The research consists of a case study and quantitative analysis of correspondent registration data and credit union financials. The results indicate that generally the largest and most profitable credit unions use banking correspondents in order to improve efficiency and decrease waiting lines, while promoting financial inclusion only in one restricted dimension – bill payment. Nevertheless, in 2014, credit union correspondents had an important role in providing access to payments in 690 municipalities, of which 200 had low financial depth. Despite the scope limitation of credit union correspondents, the results give reasons to believe that these actors could increase their importance in the promotion of financial inclusion in the future. A rede de correspondentes bancários do Brasil tem sido estudada há mais de uma década, em particular por causa da sua importância no aumento do alcance de serviços financeiros para regiões distantes dos maiores centros urbanos. O uso de correspondentes por cooperativas de crédito não tem recebido destaque, apesar do papel importante das cooperativas na inclusão financeira. Esta dissertação adota uma abordagem 'multimétodo' para efetuar uma pesquisa exploratória dos correspondentes de cooperativas de crédito no Brasil. A pesquisa visa, por um lado, alargar a compreensão dos incentivos que levam cooperativas a usarem correspondentes, e por outro, avaliar se esses correspondentes merlhoram a inclusão financeira. A pesquisa é formada por um estudo de caso assim como por análise de dados relativos ao registro de correspondentes bancários e de dados financeiros das cooperativas. Os resultados apontam que o uso de correspondentes bancários por cooperativas está relacionado à busca de maior eficiência e redução de filas nas agências. A melhoria da inclusão financeira por esses correspondentes limita-se a um serviço único – o recebimento de pagamentos. Não obstante, em 2014, cooperativas de correspondentes de crédito tinham um papel importante no fornecimento de serviços de recebimento de contas em 690 municípios brasileiros, dos quais 200 tinham baixos níveis de inclusão financeira. Apesar da escassa disponibilidade de serviços dos correspondentes das cooperativas, os resultados sugerem que esses atores poderiam adquirir uma importância maior na promoção de inclusão financeira no futuro.

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Business Administration Although agent banking has been common in Kenya in the recent past, its success factors have not been studied in depth as the industry is still young. As such, this study aims to investigate the factors determining the performance of Bank-Led Agent Bank Business in Kenya. The specific objectives include determining the extent to which financial factors, operational factors and management factors affect the performance of bank-led agent banking businesses in Kenya. This was an exploratory study in design and targeted all the bank agents operating within the rural areas and major towns of Kiambu County of Kenya. A stratified sampling method and structured questionnaire were used to select the sample and collect data respectively. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data. The findings show that the performance of agent banking business measured by profits was good; investors in the business did not think of quitting because of the promising nature of the business. Insecurity (robbery/theft were the main reasons for quitting). Amongst the recurrent expenses affecting profits of agent banking businesses include electricity bill and a monthly rent bills. Onetime costs include the cost of acquiring a transaction device and contingency costs. Availability of capital is an extremely important financial factor that affects the performance of agent banking business (p0.05). The study concludes that agent banking considerably increases the number of customers frequenting a store. The performance of agent banking in Kenya is significantly determined by mobile network coverage and security of agent banking environment. The ability of an agent manager/owner to borrow funds is an extremely important determinant of the agent’s performance while management of core business, capability to manage business finances, and business management capability were important factors to the performance of agent banking. Availability of adequate capital and having adequate number of employees significantly enhances the profits agent banking businesses make. The capability to manage business finances slightly affects the profits of agent banking while the manner of management of core businesses of agent banking in Kenya does not influence profits. The study proposes similar studies in different geographical areas be conducted to eliminate generalisation biases arising from region-specific variables.

This paper analyzes and quantifies cost structures of agent-assisted banking beyond branches channels (ABCs) and compares them to the costs of branch channels1. This addresses a gap in the existing literature. The qualitative review finds that ABCs maximize the proportion of variable costs that depend on realized transactions, which match revenue flows. ABCs reduce investment and operating costs, since existing agent business infrastructure is enhanced and shared. In the context of downscaling, ABCs bridge the major barrier for commercial banks: the expensive last mile to the customer. The quantitative review finds that POS / PC terminal-based ABCs reduce transactional costs to 58 percent of branch channel costs and mobile-based ABCs to 15 percent. Apart from analysis and quantification of cost structures, this paper develops a comprehensive definition of ABCs. Likewise, downscaling is defined; the two research fields are linked and investigated from a commercial banking perspective. This addresses gaps in the existing literature.

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Masters in Commerce (MCOM) There is a serious problem of limited access to financial services among low income households as majority of low income households keep their money under mattresses or in "home banks". In recognition of these hurdles, agent banking has been flaunted by financial stakeholders as with potential to include many "unbanked" low income households. Proponents of financial inclusion argue that including 38% of Kenyans without access to even the most basic financial services will enable low income communities build savings and access credit. While these arguments have often provided the theoretical justification for widespread government intervention, evidence on the success agent banking in including low income households in Kenya in the financial mainstream is not clearly known. Specifically, the research intended to establish the extent to which agent banking has enabled the residents of Kibera slums access financial services such as micro-credit and micro-savings. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to 80 respondents residing in Kibera slums .The respondents were randomly selected from the 6 regions of Kibera slums. Findings were summarized and presented in terms of tables and figures. Anova was used to determine the saving patterns of the respondents. The findings suggest that while there has been an increase in the number of low income households in the financial mainstream. there is no clear correlation between agent banking and increased savings and access to micro-credit facilities among the low income households in Kibera slums. This study concludes that inclusive banking does not necessarily result to automatic exit from poverty by poor households. The study recommends revision of agent banking in relation to the needs of poor households.

M-PESA is a remarkably successful mobile payments system launched in Kenya three years ago. Users are able to send money to each other conveniently from their M-PESA using only their mobile phones. A key to the success of M-PESA is the availability of an extensive network of retail shops that accept M-PESA deposits and withdrawals, i.e. they stand ready to exchange cash and electronic value. It is the stores that provide liquidity to the system, and they are paid a commission by M-PESA for this service. Behind the store is a network of intermediaries that arrange the logistics around cash management. In this paper we look at daily transactional data from six M-PESA stores in Western Kenya supplemented by case studies and interviews of MPESA store managers and employees in order to better understand the liquidity management needs of these stores. We examine how liquidity needs vary by location and day of week/month, and by the level of service offered by the store. We find that stores require intense daily management of liquidity to maintain customer service levels and that this is more difficult in rural areas. We also find some evidence of market discipline for agents who can?t maintain service levels.