What influences village-level access to a bank branch? Evidence from India

Purpose - Financial access is key to achieving several economic goals in developing countries. This paper aims to construct a longitudinal village-level measure of financial access in India and understand the role of RBI's policies and village characteristics in influencing the access. Design/methodology/approach - The authors adopt a spatial approach in developing a metric of financial access. In particular, they measure the distance of each unbanked village in India to the nearest banked-centre from 1951 to 2019. The authors use this measure to conduct two exercises. First, a descriptive study is undertaken to assess how RBI's policies on bank branch expansion from 1951 to 2019 influenced the proximity to bank branches. Second, the authors conduct regression analyses to investigate how socio-economic and demographic characteristics of villages influence their proximity to bank branches. Findings - The average distance of an unbanked village to the nearest banked-centre has declined from 43.5 km in 1951 to 4.2 km in 2019. The gain in bank access has varied geographically and over time. In 2001, bank branches were relatively distant from villages with under-privileged caste groups and proximate to areas with better infrastructure. This relationship worsened after 2005 when RBI introduced liberalized branch expansion policies. By 2019, proximity responds much more adversely to the presence of underprivileged groups. At the same time, banks have moved closer to economically better-off villages and villages with workforce in non-farm enterprises rather than agriculture. Originality/value - First, studies in the Indian context focus on state-level determinants of bank branching, this is the first study to develop a longitudinal measure of financial access at the village level. This helps to understand spatial heterogeneity in bank branch access within states, which other studies are unable to do. Second, the paper analyses the role of village-level socio-economic and demographic characteristics in proximity to bank branches. This analysis helps in discovering micro-foundations of growth of bank branch network. The granularity of the approach adopted here overcomes the confoundedness problems that the studies at a more aggregate level face.