Banking correspondents had been introduced by banks in India to help reach and service users in remote and unreached areas, and to improve account engagement. Therefore, the quality and timely availability of BCs is important for provisioning adequate financial services. However, it has been observed that sufficient information (infrastructure, service and transaction data) is not available on the key performance indicators (KPIs) to take informed decisions.

There is also no centralized dashboard for measuring operational KPIs of key stakeholders such as banks, SLBCs, and Business Correspondents. In close consultation with various stakeholders such as Department of Financial Services, PMJDY Mission, banks, CDFI has developed a Financial Inclusion Dashboard (FI Dashboard) to advance the below objectives:

• Enhance monitoring and management of Banking Correspondent activities through a centralized dashboard & MIS portal;
• Ensure availability of accurate data by sourcing it from banks on a periodic basis;
• Measure and display stakeholders’ performance against predefined parameters in easy to understand visual representation; and
• Enable use of field data to provide insights to stakeholders for effective decision making

The conceptual model was first created with Punjab National Bank in 2015 and the dashboard was successfully hosted in the bank covering 3,652 bank branches involving 7,168 Banking Correspondents (BCs).

Under an MoU with Chhattisgarh Infotech Promotion Society (CHiPS), Government of Chhattisgarh, CDFI is currently implementing the FI Dashboard in the State. 36 banks have agreed to share data on their BC transactions. Format for data sharing is being finalized in close consultations with the banks. FI Dashboard is expected to monitor BC activities in 20,114 villages across the state. CDFI is also coordinating with RBI and Department of Financial Services (DFS) to address various concerns of the banks in sharing data.

The dashboard is a tool for bank officials and administrators to gauge the volume of financial transactions through Banking correspondents.