Seven district cooperative banks have joined the core banking solution project phase II of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard).
They are based in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Kottayam, Idukki, Kasargod, Kozhikode and Wayanad districts, a spokesman for the regional office of Nabard said.
SERVICE PROVIDER
Wipro will be the service provider. The project will be launched on August 1 and completed across 344 branches of these banks by March 31, 2013.
The spokesman said that this was one of the two Nabard initiatives in rural banking launched in Mumbai on the occasion of its 30th foundation day.
The other one was Aadhaar-enabled kisan credit cards, issue of which would now be made easy. The farmers’ accounts have been beefed up with security features.
Dr D. Subba Rao, Governor, Reserve Bank, launched this initiative by issuing cards to nine farmers from regional rural banks sponsored by Bank of India.
The chairman, Dr Prakash Bakshi, said Nabard had moved from being just a refinancing institution to an institution which ‘thinks’ about development.
It would also promote researches, designs and create new products and programmes; and groom varied partners. The effort is aimed at influencing the thought process and actions of all those engaged in rural development.
A total of 163 State and Central cooperative banks have joined the initiative of core banking solution (CBS) for cooperative banks.
CBS MIGRATION
These are drawn from the 10 states of Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
An estimated 5,543 branches of these banks would migrate to the CBS platform once the roll out is completed expectedly by December 31.
The 30{+t}{+h} Nabard foundation day saw 25 of these branches from Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Haryana, Maharashtra and Karnataka go live. Two vendors, TCS and Wipro, are implementing the project across the country.