Leading car loan lender, Union Bank of India intends to earmark a corpus of Rs 500 crore to help farmers in Andhra Pradesh. The bank is also targetting the Surat-Ganjam (Orrisa) corridor and the migrant laborers out there. It intends to offer mobile based savings accounts in the region.
Union bank is targeting 32,000 villages which it plans to envelop in the next 3 years. The bank is estimated to add 6.2 million new clients during this period, thus boosting its client base to 10 million.
The bank is also testing offering finance to the associates of Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) in Andhra Pradesh via Co-options Technologies Ltd (COTL).
It has already completed funding for 2 crop seasons. Nair said, “In the next stage, we are extending this to 650 PACS covering around 1.25 lakh farmers with a loan corpus of Rs 500 crore. Financial inclusion is not only restricted to rural areas, but the same is evident in urban areas too”.
Presently the bank is developing 2 money-moving corridors– Mumbai-Eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar and Delhi-Eastern UP and Bihar corridor.
Nair added, “We will shortly replicate this model in other money-moving corridors like Surat-Ganjam (Orrisa)”.