NABARD to tie up with banks to help them install two PoS terminals per village

MUMBAI: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is going to support banks for deployment of two PoS (Point of Sales) devices per village in one lakh villages of Tier 5 and 6 areas having a population of upto 10,000 in an effort to facilitate more cashless transactions in rural India. The effort is going to cost NABARD an estimated Rs 120 crore said the bank in a statement to the media.

Further, to encourage adoption of new generation secure technology among farmers who are already on Rupay KCC (Kisan Credit Card) platform, NABARD will now support procurement of EMV chip and PIN-based RuPay Kisan Cards by both regional rural banks and the rural cooperative banks at an approximate expenditure of Rs. 108 crore covering around 4.32 crore KCC holders.

“At NABARD we believe that these two initiatives will have a positive impact in easing the transition to digital transactions," said Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, chairman of NABARD.

NABARD has played a pivotal role in adoption of banking technology among regional rural banks and rural cooperative banks. Over the last few years it has brought nearly the entire cooperative banking system onto Core Banking Solution (CBS) platform. It had also provided financial support to select regional rural banks for moving over to CBS platform, the first pre-requisite for moving towards cashless banking services.