Colombia’s Recipe for 100% Agent Coverage: Aggregation & Sharing
Universal coverage is a fundamental building block toward universal financial access. Last year Colombia announced that all of its 1,100+ municipalities had at least one banking agent serving customers in need of financial services. How did Colombia do it?Using a Gamified Solution to Incentivize Mobile Money Agents
Empowering mobile money agents to provide exceptional customer service can be challenging. In Indonesia, BTPN has an innovative solution that uses gamification.More than Human ATMs: The Potential of Empowered Agents
Using mobile technology to empower agents to do more than collect payments, a Senegalese agridealer grew sales, cut costs and made its customers happier.Can Agents Improve Conditional Cash Transfers in Peru?
Innovations for Poverty Action is working with the Peruvian Government to test conditional cash transfer programs that help poor people save more and receive their payments in more convenient ways.CGAP Releases New Research on Banking Agents in India
As part of a new series of research on agents and mobile/branchless banking, this month we started a series of blog posts about recent field visits with some of India’s most prominent organizations that make use of agents.Waiting in Line…Where’s My Agent? Headlines and Highlights
I’m blogging from Dakar, Senegal where I had a stark reminder of why innovation in financial services is so necessary.Do Agents Improve Financial Inclusion? Evidence from Brazil
With more than 400,000 agents, Brazil has one of the largest agent networks in the world, but their impact on financial inclusion is mixed.Doing Good by Doing Well: Women Banking Agents in India
In India's Bihar state, women Bank Sakhi agents help enable financial inclusion for rural, vulnerable, and hard-to-reach customers, more so than the traditional agents - but various gender norms constrain how they operate. We discuss solutions.The Case for Off-Grid Solar Companies as Mobile Money Agents
Off-grid solar companies could boost revenue and reach more low-income customers by becoming master mobile money agents in remote areas.Mobile Money Agents in Tanzania: How Busy, How Exclusive?
The Financial Sector Deepening Trust of Tanzania (FSDT) undertook a census of cash outlets in the country, and discovered that half of all agents do more than 30 transactions per month and nearly two-thirds of agents are exclusive to M-PESA.Agent Network Journeys Towards the Last Mile: Lessons from China, Colombia, India, Indonesia and Kenya
CGAP and its partners conducted deep dive studies in five leading financial markets and presented findings from Kenya, Colombia, India, Indonesia and China.How are Mobile Money Agents Protecting Customers’ Data in Uganda?
Recent qualitative research in Uganda conducted by CGAP and MicroSave Consulting (MSC) identified good practices for responsible agents in safeguarding their customers’ data and the role that providers can play in promoting these practices.How Is the Pandemic Affecting Agents? Here’s What Providers Tell Us
As customers, agents and digital financial services providers adjust to COVID-19, it’s becoming clearer what a resilient agent network looks like. Providers should take note to prepare for future crises.Frontier Agents
GSMA's 2017 State of the Industry reports a global total of 5.3 million agents, an impressive sixfold increase over the 886,000 agents in existence just five years ago. However, the bulk of digital financial services (DFS) agents are in urban or peri-urban areas, and research by CGAP and others demonstrates that business-as-usual practices will not be enough for agents to penetrate frontier areas significantly. This has real implications for financial inclusion and the gradual shift toward a digital economy, since agents represent the on-ramp to the digital accounts. Proximity to agents
Women Agents for Financial Inclusion: Exploring the Benefits, Constraints, and Potential Solutions
This working paper explores the benefits of having more women agents, the challenges they face, and potential solutions to promote their participation. It highlights that engaging women agents does not compromise performance and offers collaborative solutions for stakeholders to remove barriers and unlock the full potential of women in the DFS ecosystem.Pakistan: Gender-Intentional Policy Can Make Agent Banking Work Better
Many women in Pakistan remain financially excluded, partly because social norms limit their access to banking agents. Policy makers and regulators can help change this with a gender-intentional approach to agent banking.BTPN Wow! Using Open APIs to Bring E-Commerce to Its 250,000 Agents
By connecting its agents to e-commerce platforms, BTPN is giving agents and end-customers in Indonesia more reasons to use its mobile banking service.Why Women Self-Help Group Members Make for Good Bank Agents
Pilot projects that train women self-help group members as bank agents in rural areas in India are proving to be promising.Postal Networks: a Physical Link to the Digital Economy
This series takes a closer look at a recent report from the United States Postal Service which states it might use its deep postal infrastructure to expand financial services to the poor. Contributors highlight key lessons from the developing world that could pave the way for success in the U.S.
Around the world, postal networks are increasingly leveraging their branch networks and other assets to expand on their financial services role. In many countries, they are emerging as important gateways for financial inclusion of the world’s poor. Evidence on account ownership in 60 countries confirms