Just as microcredit on its own does not represent full financial inclusion, it is our view that neither do business correspondent accounts
In a country of 1.2 billion individuals, if we exclude children, we should at least have 900 million bank account holders before we can say the job of basic inclusion in banking is complete. No matter how we count, however, the actual number of bank account holders do not seem to cross 200 million. This is appalling to say the least—and may also, in part, explain why we escaped the subprime crisis; many people were simply outside the financial system. The real mystery is why this should be the situation at all?
India has a concentrated banking system, which means that if five individuals decide that this needs to be done, it will be done. These five are the finance minister, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor and the chief executives of the top three banks. Prompted by proactive statements by the finance minister in his 2006 budget speech, RBI allowed banks the use of business correspondents to expand rapidly their outreach in a low-cost manner. (Business correspondents are intermediaries who carry out banking functions in villages or areas where it is not possible to open a branch.)
The technology and the on-ground capability to make this possible with virtually no frauds, complete with smart cards and fingerprint readers, came soon thereafter and have existed for a while now. Most major banks—certainly the top three—have acquired full familiarity with the system, and are using it, though in isolated pockets, producing a daily issuance rate of at least 50,000 new accounts and 300,000 transactions.
Brazil, using similar legislation and far more primitive technologies, was able to go from financial access statistics similar to ours to over 80% penetration from 2000 to 2005. Given that all the enablers are in place in India, why are we dragging our feet? Why has this effort reached out to only around 10 million individuals in the last three years against the 900 million that it needs to?
One issue that has clearly emerged as a barrier is the cost of providing this service and, more importantly, who will bear it. To provide business correspondent access at each of the 300,000 gram panchayat (village council) points, we estimate a one-time cost of around Rs1,000 crore (including the provision of biometric readers) and an annual recurring cost of around Rs4,000 crore for the 300,000 business correspondents (one for each panchayat).
There is a potential additional cost on smart cards that may be needed if the USO (universal service obligation) fund available to the telecom sector is unable to provide reliable Internet connectivity to every gram panchayat; with in excess of Rs18,000 crore at their disposal, in our view, this connectivity is something the telecom sector should be able to provide, or, in the interim, use USO funds to payfor the smart cards.