Banking For The Poor: McKinsey Strategy

From McKinsey Quarterly [free but registration required], "A new idea in banking for the poor: By teaming up with retail outlets in low-income, often hard-to-reach areas, financial institutions can create value both for themselves and their new customers" November 2010, by Alberto Chaia, Robert Schiff, and Esteban Silva:

Correspondent banking has become one of the most promising strategies for offering financial services in emerging markets. In this model, financial institutions work with networks of existing nonbank retail outlets—such as convenience stores, gas stations, and post offices—to deliver financial services. This approach can be especially powerful when serving the unbanked poor because of its ability to reduce banks’ cost-to-serve and reach low-income workers where they live. In Brazil, where the strategy has enjoyed its greatest successes, about 1,600 municipalities (approximately one-third of the total) are served solely by correspondent-banking outlets.

Read the complete McKinsey & Co. article here.