The confidence to carry out banking transactions through subagents continues to grow, despite the closure of some businesses that offered this financial service, and it must be strengthened, because the pattern of consumption and services has changed after the measures that were applied in the country to avoid the massive contagion of the virus caused by COVID-19.
In that sense, the Superintendency of Banks (SB) indicated that by the end of 2021, the Finance system The Dominican registered 2,016 businesses that work as subagents, a reduction of 87 establishments compared to 2020, for a percentage decrease of 4.1%.
This year-on-year reduction in the number of SABs has remained constant since 2017, the period in which it reached the highest number, with 2,915 subagents operating in the system.
The SB indicated in its most recent report that the total transactions carried out in 2021 amounted to 15 million for an approximate value of 66.8 million pesos, with deposits and payments in cash or checks being the most frequent operations made by users in grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware stores and supermarkets, among other businesses that carry out financial operations.
The Superintendency highlighted that the result of the document’s statistics corresponds specifically to the subagents that have shown some activity during the last year, since there are many registered businesses that have not presented movements during that period of analysis.
The document says that, despite the reduction in the number of operational SAB establishments, the amounts traded by said sub-agents show a constant increase since their implementation, reaching 66.8 million pesos traded by 2021. “This suggests that operational SABs could be reaching higher levels of efficiency by taking advantage of economies of scale and scope”, highlights the institution.
The SB assures that the fact that fewer subagents are actively working does not mean that the effectiveness of these actors has decreased, but rather it demonstrates the trust that users have in this type of service due to the increase in transactions.
During the time that the SAB model has been implemented, it can be seen that grocery stores have remained the type of business with the most operational establishments, reaching some 649 by 2021. These are followed by pharmacies with 511 and supermarkets with 604.
The bank subagents they can carry out different types of operations, such as: consultation of movements and balance, deposits, withdrawals, payments, receive remittances, prepaid cards and send electronic transfers.
amounts
Contrary to the number of establishments, the amounts traded continue to increase with a year-on-year increase of 12.8%, as a reflection of the fact that the national network of sub-agents is becoming more efficient and takes advantage of economies of scale.
The values traded registered an exponential increase of 53.1% during 2021, compared to the same period in 2020, going from 43.6 million pesos to 66.8 million pesos in 2021, which reflects an absolute increase of 23.2 million pesos.
On average, an operational banking subagent establishment registered 91 monthly operations for 2021, a value that has continued to increase since the implementation of the SAB model, reported the Superintendence.
