In collaboration with one of the largest banks in Indonesia, our research design will generate exogenous variation in the level of competition that incumbent agents are expected to have in the near future and provide different marketing tools to face the upcoming competition. We will use survey data on clients’ perceptions about the agent and the products offered and agents’ perceptions on factors limiting broader adoption to document the role of trust and fairness in this market. Exploiting variation in competition, we will estimate its effects on take-up of new financial products, and evaluate the role of different marketing strategies agents can use to increase trust and capitalize on increased competition.
The research will study the branchless banking agent market in Indonesia, where the partner bank aims at recruiting 10,000 new agents over the next year. The research will first characterize the barriers to the adoption of new financial products, with a specific focus on trust and fairness. Using this input, we ask what are the effects of increased competition on take-up, the role of agents’ marketing strategies targeted at increasing trust, and their interactions with higher levels of competition. The results will have important implications for regulation policies for this increasingly important market in developing countries.
In collaboration with one of the largest banks in Indonesia, the research design will generate exogenous variation in the level of competition that incumbent agents are expected to have in the near future, and provide different marketing tools to face the upcoming competition.
- Erika Deserranno, Northwestern University
- Daniel Gottlieb, London School of Economics
- Martin Kanz, World Bank
- Gianmarco Leon-Ciliotta, U Pompeu Fabra, BSE & IPEG
- Firman Witoelar, Australian National University
- Alif Azadi Taufik, J-PAL South Asia
- Nadia Setiabudi, J-PAL South Asia