Boots on the ground: Businesses correspondent model needs mending

The business correspondent channel for financial inclusion is calling for a pay raise, investments and an end to penalties

Almost two decades after business correspondents (BCs) arrived on the scene, the lack of grease is evident. Poor payout for the heavy lifting they do is is making the channel – a key cog in the financial inclusion wheel – creaky. For there has been no upward revision in the pricing of BC services for years: Be it on cash withdrawals, cash deposits, money transfers, or Aadhaar-Enabled Payment System (AePS) transactions. And what nobody will go on record is that BCs and banks are ranged against each other. An interesting matter of detail is that these issues