Executive Summary

The study highlights the need for measures to accelerate the pace of the business correspondent (BC) model for financial inclusion in India. The financial analysis of the existing BCs with the existing products and services in practice shows a very diffusive break-even (more than 7 years). The occurrence of such a long-term break-even point can be a potential threat to the sustainability of new and struggling entrepreneurs like a Customer Service Point (CSP). A CSP agent runs a kiosk of a certain bank in a rural context, functioning like a BC between the bank and the beneficiaries. The primary investigation found that high cost and low volume of transaction at the CSP points are two major causes of the long break-even. In this context, the study revisited the constructs related to cost structure, market outreach, market potential and commission structure for channellizing respective banking and non-banking products. The major categories of products include (a) banking operation, (b) loan and over-draft, and (c) social security schemes. In search of a solution, the study adopts a non-random stratified sampling technique with a semi-structured interview process to collect the data from different stakeholders in the BC operation. To develop an economically viable BC model, the researchers use a standard financial modelling technique. In contrast to the existing kiosk model of CSP operation, the study found that while applying the new model a CSP agent takes three years to break-even under the same condition as that of the existing model. The study can also be applied in the domain of bottom of the pyramid (BOP) marketing by treating to create value among the low-income customers and business partners like CSPs. This research can further be extended to investigate the viability of the BC model from the banks’ return on investment perspective.

执行摘要

这项研究强调了采取措施加快印度金融普惠业务代表（BC）模式步伐的必要性。在实践中，对现有BC与现有产品和服务的财务分析表明，盈亏平衡点非常分散（超过7年）。如此长久的收支平衡点的出现可能对像客户服务点（CSP）这样的新兴且挣扎中的企业家的可持续性造成潜在威胁。CSP代理在农村环境中运行某家银行的自助服务站，其功能类似于银行和受益人之间的BC。初步调查发现，CSP点的高成本和低交易量是长期收支平衡的两个主要原因。在此背景下，研究重新探讨了与成本结构，市场拓展，分销银行和非银行产品的市场潜力和佣金结构。产品的主要类别包括（a）银行业务，（b）贷款和透支以及（c）社会保障计划。为了寻找解决方案，该研究采用了具有半结构化访谈过程的非随机分层抽样技术，以从BC业务中收集来自不同利益相关者的数据。为了开发经济可行的BC模型，研究人员使用了标准的财务建模技术。与现有的CSP信息亭模式相反，该研究发现，在应用新模型时，CSP代理在与现有模型相同的条件下需要3年才能达到收支平衡。该研究还可以通过在低收入客户和CSP之类的商业伙伴之间创造价值来应用于金字塔底层（BOP）营销领域。该研究可以进一步扩展以从银行的投资回报率角度研究BC模型的可行性。