Purpose: - This paper aims to study the outreach and performance of Business Correspondent (BC) models which are implemented as a subsidiary agent of banks to accelerate the financial inclusion mission in India. In this regard, the study illustrates BC’s products and services rendered to customers, forms of delivery channels and BC’s view on banking services and Kiosk based BC programs.

Design/methodology/approach:-This is an empirical study based on surveying 200 kiosk-based Business Correspondents working in the state of Kerala. After the preliminary screening analysis of the data with outlier deletion, removal of missing values, and Normality test, both Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) were executed followed by reliability test, convergent and discriminant validity tests. Covariance-based Structural Equation Modeling (CBSEM) was performed for CFA and inferential tests were carried out by using SPSS AMOS and Eviews.

Findings: - Chiefly, eight operational forms of BCs were found from the field survey. Hypothetical tests show the significant impact of the serviceability of banks on BC’s profitability. Validity tests such as AVE, CR, MSV, and ASV were established after the removal of the cross-loaded items of the questionnaire from the rotated component matrix. BCs perform main banking services especially bank account opening facility and Akshaya E-Centers are widely used for this model as kiosk banking in the surveyed state.

Originality/Value: So far, no study has encompassed empirical research on performance analysis and outreach of the BC Model in the state of Kerala, where this BC model well functions. Since this is a novel form of banking channelization for financial inclusion, this study can contribute to understanding the further feasibility and future dimension of this model based on experimental views of BCs.

Keywords: Financial Inclusion, Kiosk Banking, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), Business Correspondent (BC) Model

JEL Classification: G21, G28, C12, C38, P25