Agency Banking: How Banks and FS Providers can Thrive

In Africa, agency services are more commonplace than traditional channels, such as ATMs. Experts Dr. Benjamin Wellstein and Lukas Lauven outline the right agency channel strategy for financial services providers to grow and best differentiate their product offering from the competition.

Over the past decade, an abundance of agency offerings in banking have emerged across Africa from players such as Fawry in Egypt and Zoona in Zambia. These providers have followed the expansion of mobile money services and have been attributed a pivotal role in driving financial inclusion. Not only do agents act as tellers, taking deposits and cashing out funds, but also facilitate transfers and bill payments for people without mobile money accounts. Their outreach is unrivalled. According to recent data by …