Read the passage below carefully and answer the question that follows.
Across rural West Africa, agency banking has reshaped the landscape of financial inclusion by delegating routine banking operations to local commercial outlets such as grocery stores and petrol stations. Traditional brick-and-mortar financial institutions long viewed rural villages as unviable operational zones due to low transaction volumes and high overhead costs associated with physical branches. However, by leveraging mobile point-of-sale technology and existing community trust networks, agent networks have successfully lowered transaction friction and extended deposit, withdrawal, and remittance services to previously unbanked populations. Critics often emphasize that liquidity shortages at peak agricultural harvest times frequently disrupt daily agency transactions, forcing rural merchants to turn away prospective clients. While these localized cash-flow bottlenecks pose a persistent operational challenge, they represent secondary infrastructural friction within a system whose fundamental achievement is the democratization of formal financial access across geographically isolated communities. Ultimately, agency banking demonstrates that decentralizing financial infrastructure through informal retail networks can effectively bridge the historical divide between formal banking systems and agrarian rural populations.
Which of the following statements best expresses the main idea of the passage?
- The decentralization of banking services through local retail agents effectively expands formal financial access to unbanked rural populations.Cevap
- BLiquidity shortages during peak harvest seasons frequently disrupt daily transactions at rural banking agencies.
- CTraditional brick-and-mortar financial institutions are completely closing physical branches to transition exclusively to mobile agency networks.
- DLow transaction volumes and high overhead costs render formal financial inclusion impossible across rural agricultural communities.