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ani Rohaeni, 47, who owns a home industry in Depok, West Java, expressed her interest in becoming a bank agent.

'€œI want to gain extra income in addition to what I am doing now: selling cell phone vouchers and Sophie Martin and Tupperware products,'€ she said on Thursday, referring to brands of handbags and houseware products.

Nani is one of hundreds of home industry players who attended a gathering by private lender BCA and India-based payment technology platform Indepay to recruit agents for a branchless banking program called Laku Pandai and introduced by the Financial Services Authority (OJK).

BCA offers commission to agents for every transaction, ranging from the opening of a savings account to the withdrawal of cash.

The OJK launched the Laku Pandai program, which covers a simple savings scheme for a maximum balance of Rp 20 million, last year as part of its campaign to improve access to banking services for lower to middle-income earners.

'€œA bank agent can assist a new customer in opening a new account and help customers deposit, withdraw and wire money,'€ said BCA officer Hengky Fransiskus.

Unlike a normal savings account, the Laku Pandai account frees customers from any administration fee, but it offers a relatively low interest rate.

'€œA bank agent can assist a new customer in opening a new account and help customers deposit, withdraw and wire money.'€

In order to engage more people as agents for the Laku Pandai program, the bank and its sharia arm, BCA Syariah, have teamed up with Kaskus, Indonesia'€™s largest online forum, Islamic community Dompet Dhuafa Republika and blogging forum Kompasiana to spread the news about the agent recruitment.

'€œWe target those who already own businesses, as they will naturally have entrepreneurial drive and are willing to look for new customers,'€ he said.

The bank is also looking to recruit drivers for app-based motorcycle taxi startups as agents.

The bank is targeting to have a total of 1,000 agents, 50,000 customers and savings of Rp 7.5 billion by the end of this year for the Laku Pandai program, compared to the present 16 agents, 1,100 customers and Rp 200 million in savings.

Besides BCA, eight state-owned and private banks have also joined the Laku Pandai program. As of November last year, nine participating banks have recruited 24,865 agents, netted 1.09 million customers and collected a combined Rp 41.3 billion of savings.

The OJK aims for 300,000 agents this year to link more customers with banks around the country.

World Bank'€™s Global Financial Inclusion index report shows that only 36 percent of Indonesian adults had savings accounts in 2014, up from 19.6 percent in 2011.