This is the final blog in a series about the impact of branchless banking agents in Brazil. Sarah Rotman blogged about how two merchants – Nestor and Roberto – see the business, and Claudia McKay examined the impact on communities and consumers, looking through the eyes of a small town in the Amazon. These insights [...]

We often think of branchless banking without looking at the nonprofits working in the community for social and economic development. Two colleagues and I were in Brazil in December to understand the business case for agents (termed “banking correspondents” in Brazil) and good practice for building a viable agent network. We partnered with the Center [...]

The agent economics around branchless banking can be a complicated subject. As we highlighted in the M-PESA research we did last year, liquidity management can be difficult and costly. But in general, M-PESA agents were making enough profit to compensate for these inconveniences. Two colleagues and I were in Brazil in December to understand how [...]

In my last post, I introduced the town of Autazes in the Amazon basin and shared how agents (termed banking correspondents in Brazil) helped transform Autazes from a backwater to a banking hub. I visited Autazes in December 2009 as part of an agent research project conducted with the Center for Microfinance Studies at FGV [...]

One might think that a small town in the heart of the Amazon basin would be the last place to need banking services. Yet during a visit to one such town, Autazes, I encountered a community that credits banking services (via agents, termed banking correspondents in Brazil) with not only making life more convenient for [...]

Two colleagues and I recently spent 2 weeks in Brazil interviewing agents (termed “banking correspondents” in Brazil) as part of CGAP’s three-country research on agent networks. We started last year with an analysis on the agent economics of M-PESA. We then turned our attention to Brazil, and in the next few months we will look [...]