Private lender Axis Bank, launched its ‘Kisan Card’ to facilitate easy agriculture lending to farmers through ATMs.
The electronic Kisan Card on the RuPay platform, will be offered to farmers or agrarian customers of the bank on their cash credit crop loan accounts. The offer will provide the convenience of visiting any ATM for cash withdrawals instead of visiting the branch.
“The card provides queue free, 24x7 disbursement facility for farmers, allowing them to use their loan limit by withdrawing cash up to Rs 1 Lakh per day, in the required quantum, as and when required, thereby reducing their interest burden and negating the risk of carrying higher volumes of cash,” the bank said in a statement.
R K Bammi, Executive Director – Retail Banking, Axis Bank said, “The launch of Kisan Card is a significant step towards introducing a branch-less, convenient and secure banking solution to the Agrarian consumer. Normally debit cards are linked to a Savings / Current account. In this case, Kisan Card is linked to the farmer’s Crop Loan account, which negates the need to go to the branch to transact. Almost 90-95 per cent farmers currently use the branch as an interface; we expect about 30 - 40 per cent farmers to migrate on to using this alternate channel actively.”