SBI leads in MeitY Digital Payment Scorecard

SBI leads in MeitY Digital Payment Scorecard

·         SBI has been at the forefront of providing the latest innovative digital products and services to its customers, paving the way for a less cash India

 

Country’s largest lender State Bank of India has topped the list of Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology’s (MeitY) Digital Payment Scorecard for 3 consecutive months. The scorecard tracks Commercial Banks’ performance on various digital parameters. SBI remained the top remitter bank by recording highest UPI transaction volume of nearly 64 crore having a user base of 13.5 crore.

SBI processed 636 crore transactions through its digital platforms which is 67% of the bank’s total transaction volume. The bank commands almost 25% market share by transaction volume of mobile banking. According to SimilarWeb, SBI’s internet banking service - onlinesbi.sbi is ranked first in terms of online traffic in the banking credit and lending category, and is used by over 8.5 crore customers.  

SBI’s flagship digital and lifestyle platform YONO has also furthered digital lending in a seamless manner. YONO has provided an impetus to digital lending with over 10 lakh Personal Loans amounting to Rs. 15,996 crore being disbursed during the FY (Apr- Dec’2020). Through YONO Krishi, around 7.85 lakh agri gold loans worth Rs. 12,035 crore were sanctioned in Q3FY21. Also 2.42 lakh Kisan Credit Card accounts amounting to Rs. 4,230 crore have been reviewed (August – December 2020).

SBI is also the largest issuer of debit cards. Over 29 crore debit cards are used by SBI customers, with a 30% market share in card spends and 29% share in transaction volume. Bank has made steady progress in increasing payment acceptance infrastructure as well. Over 31 lakh merchant touchpoints are now enabled across different payment modes which include – BHIM UPI QR, Bharat QR, BHIM – Aadhaar and POS. Nearly 51% of these payment acceptance points are located in rural and semi-urban geographies, in line with government’s objective to expand merchant footprint in far-flung areas of the country. 

Bank’s Payment Aggregator service SBIePay – the first and only payment aggregator platform owned by a Bank, caters to the emerging digital payment needs of large merchants in the public sector- Central Govt. Departments, Autonomous Bodies, State Govt. undertakings etc. and serves the private sector enterprises as well.

ICICI Bank introduces use of satellite data to

ICICI Bank introduces use of satellite data to power credit assessment of farmers

·         First bank in the country and among few globally to do this

·         Available in 500 villages in Maharashtra, MP and Gujarat; plans to scale up to 63,000 villages shortly

ICICI Bank today announced the usage of satellite data—imagery from Earth observation satellites—to assess credit worthiness of its customers belonging to the farm sector. The Bank is the first in India and among few globally to use satellite data to measure an array of parameters related to the land, irrigation and crop patterns and use it in combination with demographic and financial parameters to make expeditious lending decisions for farmers. This use of innovative technology helps farmers with existing credit to enhance their eligibility, while new-to-credit farmers can now get better access to credit. Additionally, since the land verification is done in a contactless manner with the help of satellite data, credit assessments are being done within a few days as against the industry practice of upto 15 days.  

The Bank has been using satellite data for the past few months in over 500 villages in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and plans to scale up the initiative to over 63,000 villages shortly across the country.

This initiative gains significance at a time when people are advised to stay indoors and avoid travel in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic. This use of satellite data provides quick and technically sound analysis of the land, crop and irrigation patterns from remote locations, without the need of the customer or a bank official having to visit the land. It offers farmers the significant advantage of reliable data being provided to the Bank without any hassles of travel, operational or logistical expenditure to them.

Commenting on this new initiative, Mr. Anup Bagchi, Executive Director, ICICI Bank, said, “ICICI Bank has a legacy of pioneering innovations in technology to create propositions that provide increased convenience to customers. We have created new paradigms in the financial services industry by taking the lead in introducing path breaking innovations including firsts like internet banking in 1998, mobile banking (2008), Tab banking (2012), 24x7 Touch Banking branches (2012), Software Robotics (2016) and Blockchain deployment (2016).

We are bringing forth yet another futuristic technology of using satellite data and analysis to provide key inputs for credit assessments for lending to farmers. Earlier, one had to visit remote locations to manually assess a host of parameters on the land location, irrigation levels and crop quality patterns to forecast future revenues of the farmers. Now, imagery from earth observation satellite gives us ground-breaking ability to track many information across large areas in a contactless and highly reliable manner. This, combined with demographic and financial details, provides strong information on the land asset of the farmers. We believe that usage of this technology will enhance accessibility to credit as new-to-credit farmers will have easy access to formal credit, as well as farmers with existing credit lines will be able to securely expand their eligibility. With encouraging response to our pilot project in over 500 villages, we will shortly cover over 63,000 villages in the country for lending with this technology.”

The Bank has partnered with agri–fintech companies specialising in harnessing space technology and weather information for commercial usage. It has worked closely with them to build reports with over 40 parameters for assessing credit-worthiness of a farmer with deep study of the land, irrigation and crop patterns. The analysis is put together using algorithms to analyse images available from satellites around the planet.  Additionally, the Bank has worked on further scoring models to create indices at district level, village level as well as for individual land to provide an estimate of the past and future agriculture income, the timing of harvest and sources of income, and thus, provide key inputs to credit assessments.

Some of the key satellite data being used by the Bank are:

·         Rainfall and temperature data of past years

·         Soil moisture levels in past years

·         Surface water availability

·         Trends in crop sowing including crop name, tentative sowing & harvesting weeks, crop health and yields

·         Agriculture land location details including latitude, longitude and boundary of the land

·         Nearby locations of warehouses and mandis

This innovative technology will help farmers, who are existing customers of the Bank as well as non-customers, to avail KCC (Kisan Credit Card) loans. KCC attributed one-third to the Bank’s rural loan portfolio of Rs 571.77 billion in the quarter ended June 30, 2020.

For news and updates, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ICICIBank 

For media queries, write to: corporate.communications@icicibank.com

SBI further empowers farmers with

SBI further empowers farmers with YONO Krishi; introduces
Kisan Credit Card (KCC) Review on the platform

 ·         Bank introduces KCC Review feature on the YONO Krishi platform which has been witnessing great response from farmers

·          YONO KCC Review to enable farmers access their KCC limit on YONO in just four clicks

·         YONO KCC Review to benefit more than 75 lakh farmers

·         YONO KCC review will empower farmers to embrace digital technology and make them future-ready

·         YONO Krishi platform offers a one-stop solution to all farmers’ agricultural needs

Country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) continues to empower its farmer customers by offering them technology backed agricultural solutions with YONO Krishi. The recently launched platform that caters to all the requirements of farmers – from sowing to harvesting and then selling – has been receiving significant traction from the farmers. In the current unprecedented times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, SBI is set to make lives easier for its farmer customers by introducing the KCC Review option on YONO Krishi. With this added feature, farmers will no longer need to travel the distance to visit the bank branch to apply for a revision in their KCC limit. KCC Review option on YONO Krishi will help farmers apply for the same in just 4 clicks from the comfort of their homes without any paperwork.

Recognizing the fact that not all farmers may have access to smartphones, SBI has also streamlined the KCC review process at its branches. KCC Review on YONO Krishi is expected to benefit more than 75 lakh farmers having KCC accounts with SBI. The feature of paperless KCC review will not only help farmers save costs and effort involved in applying for revision of the KCC limit, but also make the process quicker for them especially during the harvesting season.

Rajnish Kumar, Chairman, SBI said, “Introduction of YONO KCC Review on YONO Krishi is SBI’s yet another initiative to make our farmer customers, future-ready by offering them constant digital innovations pertaining to their agricultural needs. This new feature has been added keeping in mind millions of our valuable farmer customers’ convenience and safety. We believe that they will now be experiencing hassle-free application process for their KCC limit revision. With a Digital-First approach, it is SBI’s continuous endeavor to provide innovative digital banking solutions to all our diverse set of customers across the country.”

Apart from KCC Review, the multi-lingual YONO Krishi platform - which is bringing-in technology to farmers in more than 10 vernacular languages - is offering services such as YONO Khata, YONO Bachat, YONO Mitra and YONO Mandi to its farmer customers. These unique offerings facilitate farmers with Agri loan products, an online marketplace to buy and rent agricultural inputs and equipment, customized farming advisory, investment, and crop insurance products, instant agri gold loan, upgrade to scientific farming practices, and much more. With YONO Krishi, SBI has opened the doors of digital agriculture to farmers. In just one year of its launch, YONO Krishi has disbursed more than 14 lakh Agri Gold loans and has seen more than 15 lakh clicks on YONO Mandi and YONO Mitra

YONO itself has grown by leaps and bounds over the last two and a half years since its launch. It has seen more than 58 million downloads with over 26 million registered users. YONO has partnered with over 80 e-commerce players in more than 20 categories. The bank’s flagship banking and lifestyle platform – YONO is also tasting success in international markets such as the UK and Mauritius.