ICICI to use satellites for farm credit

Context: ICICI Bank has announced the introduction of usage of satellite data-imagery from earth observation satellites—to assess credit worthiness of its customers belonging to the farm sector.

Details:

• The bank, the first in India and among a few globally to do so, will use the data to measure an array of parameters related to the land, irrigation and crop patterns and in combination with demographic and financial parameters to make faster lending decisions for farmers.
• The bank has been using satellite data for the past few months as a pilot basis in over 500 villages in Maharashtra, MP and Gujarat and will now scale it up to over 63,000 villages across the country

 Advantages:

• Use of technology helps farmers with existing credit to enhance their eligibility, while new-to-credit farmers can now get better access to credit.
• Since land verification is done in a contactless manner, credit assessments take only a few days as against the industry practice of up to 15 days.

Reference: https://www.thehindu.com/business/icici-to-use-satellites-for-farm-credit/article32440358.ece