Banking agents are retail vendors, lottery outlets, and post offices-trusted local establishments that can double as a kind of bank branch for their customers, processing everything from bill and pension payments to deposits, withdrawals, and money transfers. Banking agents' lower set-up and...

Innovative use of information and communications technologies to inexpensively process a large volume of small transactions and deliver a wide range of financial services may help to make microfinance institutions (MFIs) more efficient and commercial banks more interested in serving poor people....