ICICI Bank to use satellite data to assess credit worthiness of farmers

Non-public sector loan provider ICICI Bank will use satellite data—imagery from Earth observation satellites—to evaluate credit worthiness of its shoppers belonging to the farm sector.

“This use of impressive technologies assists farmers with present credit to improve their eligibility, though new-to-credit farmers can now get greater obtain to credit,” it explained in a statement on Tuesday.

Further, because the land verification is finished in a contactless manner with the aid of satellite facts, credit assessments are remaining finished within just a couple times as from the sector follow of up to fifteen times, the loan provider explained.

It has previously carried out a pilot review utilizing satellite facts for the earlier couple months in about five hundred villages in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and options to scale up the initiative to about 63,000 villages throughout the country soon.

“This, put together with demographic and financial information, delivers strong information on the land asset of the farmers. We think that utilization of this technologies will improve accessibility to credit as new-to-credit farmers will have straightforward obtain to official credit, as well as farmers with present credit strains will be ready to securely increase their eligibility,” explained Anup Bagchi, Govt Director, ICICI Bank.

The loan provider has partnered with agri–fintech corporations specialising in harnessing space technologies and weather conditions information for professional utilization and has labored with them to build experiences with about forty parameters.

The financial institution uses satellite facts to evaluate rainfall and temperature facts of earlier several years, soil humidity levels in earlier several years, surface drinking water availability, trends in crop sowing including crop name, tentative sowing and harvesting weeks, crop overall health and yields, agriculture land site information including latitude, longitude and boundary of the land as well as close by spots of warehouses and mandis.