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Exploring the Effectiveness of Low-Cost Marketing Methods for Business Correspondents in India

Marketing initiatives can help BCs to overcome challenges by increasing their visibility, creating awareness about their services, and attracting new customers. Effective marketing strategies can help BCs to increase their reach and improve their overall effectiveness in serving the unbanked population.

Gender Mainstreaming in Business Correspondent Networks

Grameen Foundation India’s Women Economic Empowerment report suggests that a woman BC agent serves a higher proportion of women customers, thereby addressing a critical gap. With the fundamental objective of facilitating financial inclusion, the BC network can no longer shy away from making a deliberate shift and a conscious choice of increasing women’s representation in the BC networks. Gender Inclusion within BC business serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it takes financial products and services to the last mile, bringing doorstep delivery and convenient access to services to women customers, the majority of who remain either excluded from or underserved by banking services. Secondly, having more women BCs as agents boosts employment opportunities at the community level, and also establishes these women as local role models as successful, influential, and respected entrepreneurs who deliver financial services to remote and underserved populations.

Reimagining the Next Generation BC Model

Grameen Foundation India The Report (GFI), together with the Business Correspondent Federation of India (BCFI), hosted a two-day CXO Roundtable on “Reimagining the Next- Generation BC Model” in Goa on Friday and Saturday, 11 November and 12 November 2022.

The invitation-only roundtable saw the industry leaders come on a common platform to communicate, collaborate and co-create a future-ready BC model that is inclusive, responsible, and viable.

Women-Friendly Micro-Savings Products

Microfinance is recognized as a promising and cost-effective tool in the fight against global poverty, with Grameen Bank’s work serving as a strong example. In developing countries like India, microfinance promotes micro-entrepreneurship and women’s empowerment through the Self-Help Group model. Although the Financial Inclusion Index shows an increase in financial inclusion in India, women remain the most financially excluded and underserved population due to various social, cultural, and systemic barriers.

Business Correspondent (BC) agents help address these gaps by delivering banking and financial services to the underserved, including women. Female BC agents have been found to serve a higher proportion of women customers, thus promoting financial inclusion. Grameen Foundation India in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is trying to increase the viability of BC agent networks and focuses on gender mainstreaming, partnering with banks and other financial institutions to offer micro-saving credit leveraged products specifically for women customers.

Escuchame Baseline Report

Grameen Foundation USA, in partnership with ODEF Financiera (ODEF) a financial service provider (FSP) headquartered out of San Pedro Sula, Honduras, launched the Escúchame project (meaning “Listen to Me” in English and is an acronym for the full project name: Economic Security for Honduran women entrepreneurs through Education and Male Engagement) with the goal to develop empowering ecosystems for women entrepreneurs in Honduras by engaging men as allies. Escúchame project objectives include: 1) Advance women’s economic security by expanding access to financial and non-financial services to women-led and women-owned micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that enhance business growth and resilience; and 2) Address harmful social and gender norms and enable safe work environments by conducting intrahousehold dialogues (IHDs) that engage men as allies for women involved in MSMEs.

BEADS Endline Report

In line with India’s National Strategy for Financial Inclusion 2019-24 goals, Grameen Foundation USA and Grameen Foundation India, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, launched the BCNM Experiments & Demonstrating Scale (BEADS) project to address the sustainability of BC agents. Three pilots, in collaboration with six partners, were conducted as part of the action research agenda to experiment with product diversification, capacity building, and customer empowerment as these are considered critical determinants of BC agent viabilities.

Business Correspondent Network Managers (BCNM) Experiment Demonstrating Scale: Gender Assessment

In order to gain a better understanding of how the Business Correspondents (BC) model in India can be improved to better drive last-mile financial inclusion, Grameen Foundation conducted an action research project known as Business Correspondent Network Managers (BCNMs) Experiments and Demonstrating Scale (BEADS). This Gender Assessment report describes the laws, policies, and institutional practices that protect and support women in India; the sociocultural norms, gender roles and power dynamics that influence women’s lives; women’s access to, use of, and control over assets and resources; the influence of gender-based violence (GBV) and crime on women; and describe the intersectional identities that may deepen some women’s vulnerabilities and social exclusion.

Measuring Empowerment in the Market Access eNabled by Digital Innovation (MANDI) Project: Baseline Study Report

Grameen Foundation USA (GFUSA) and its Indian subsidiary, Grameen Foundation India (GFI) (together, Grameen) are assisting 40 farmer producer organizations (FPOs) in the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh (UP), India through a Walmart Foundation-funded “Market Access eNabled by Digital Innovation” (MANDI) project. The MANDI project aims to strengthen the capacity of 40 select FPOs to connect smallholder farmers (SHFs), especially female farmers, to markets and finance in order to improve their incomes and resilience. The project supports 10,000 SHFs, including at least 4,000 female farmers, working across several value chains such as wheat, paddy, vegetables, and other crops to improve their access to extension services, market opportunities, and financial services.

The Applying New Evidence for Women’s empowerment (ANEW) research led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and funded by the Walmart Foundation also supports Grameen in expanding the scope of research and learning agenda for the MANDI project. With the inclusion and testing of the project-level Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index plus Market Inclusion (pro-WEAI +MI) tool, Grameen seeks to test the hypothesis that “fostering intra-household decision-making leads to the improved market orientation of smallholder farmers and women’s engagement and empowerment levels in agriculture”. This report highlights the key findings from a baseline assessment completed in 2021 and outlines some key opportunities and risks that Grameen should consider both from a methodological view and programming view to understanding pro-WEAI+MI results as well as implications of the results for the project activities.

Business Correspondent Network Managers (BCNM) Experiment Demonstrating Scale (BEADS) Baseline Report

In 2006, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced the Banking Correspondent (BC) model as an innovative and cost-effective means to advance India's national financial inclusion agenda. This model provides financial services at locations beyond bank branches and ATMs, allowing banks to engage local third-party, non-bank agents to extend doorstep delivery of basic financial products and services. The BC model has helped financial inclusion and was vital to the success of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) launched in 2014, which aimed to ensure all unbanked persons had a basic savings account. Under this financial inclusion program, over 420 million bank accounts were opened, of which 53% belonged to women. However, a 2021 report estimated that 55% of women's PMJDY accounts go unused. To address the gap, the National Rural Livelihoods Mission adopted the Bank Sakhi model in 2015-16 to integrate female BCs into the network and progressively connect more women customers to formal financial services. Even in 2021, most reports suggest that less than 14% of agents working with Business Correspondent Network Managers (BCNM) in India are women.

The RBI continues to have faith in the BC model for the last-mile delivery of a basic bouquet of financial services while acknowledging its caveats. In alignment with India’s National Strategy for Financial Inclusion 2019-24 goals, Grameen Foundation USA and Grameen Foundation India, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, launched the BCNM Experiments and Demonstrating Scale (BEADS) project to address the sustainability of rural BCs.

Farm Development Plans for Smallholder Cocoa Farmers in Ghana: Final Evaluation

Satellite for Farming, or Sat4Farming, is a consortium of the Rainforest Alliance (lead institution), Touton, Grameen Foundation, University of Ghana, WaterWatch Projects (now AuxFin), and Satelligence and is funded by the Geodata for Agriculture and Water (G4AW) program of the Netherlands Space Office (NSO). Sat4Farming seeks to triple yields of cocoa farms from 400 kg/ha to 1,500 kg/ha within a decade through a strong focus on supporting farmers to renovate and rehabilitate their farms. The major vehicle through which the overarching goal will be achieved is the deployment of a digital agriculture advisory tool, known as FarmGrow. This endline report outlines the findings from a mixed-methods evaluation conducted between 2018 and 2020 to assess changes in farmer practices and outcomes, to document intra-household dynamics such as women’s involvement in the project, as well as document the lessons learned and key recommendations for consideration, not only for the Sat4Farming team, but also for implementers of digital agriculture strategies.