Business Correspondents’ Perspective on Financial Inclusion Initiatives: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

With inclusive growth at the center of policy initiatives, multiple financial inclusion schemes have been introduced by the Government of India. Primafacie it appears that the concerted efforts have borne positive results in terms of access and usage of banking service. Business correspondents being the link between the last mile customer and the banks have played a pivot role in expanding the banking services to the hitherto excluded. This study aims to find out the perspective of the BCs about the FI initiatives. The study aims to analyze the progress made in terms of the banking access post the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna. The data collected for the purpose is both primary and secondary in nature. While the secondary data is collected from the government Web site, the secondary data has been collected from the business correspondents. The data with reference to outreach is analyzed by finding compound annual growth rate while the primary data is analyzed through two-sample paired t-test. It is observed that there is a significant increase in the expansion of banking services and a considerable improvement in the number of people who are forthcoming in availing the banking services.