ICICI Bank will transform 100 villages in 100 days in effort to provide digital ecosystem in rural India

ICICI Bank has announced an undertaking under which the bank will transform 100 villages in 100 days. The financial institution has decided to convert all of the 100 villages into ‘ICICI Digital Villages’ which is in line with the bank’s effort to arrange digital ecosystem across the country. The bank is contributing its part in resolving the ongoing chaos after the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 currency notes along with the introduction of new notes. According to ICICI, these villages will be spread all across the country without any pattern or correlation. The bank will allow the facility of e-KYC verification which can be done using the Aadhar card to open new bank accounts without the need for physical documents, simplifying the main difficulty for most users who don’t have a bank account as of now. The bank will also impart vocational training to over 10,000 underprivileged villagers, especially women, to help them earn a living along with the formation of self-help groups. ICICI will also extend credit facilities to encourage the trained villages who want to try and open up self-employment options. This commitment comes right after ICICI turned one village in Gujarat into India’s first ‘digital’ village in Akodara in Sabarkantha. “ICICI Bank continues to be a catalyst to accelerate development in our country. By leveraging technology, we converted Akodara in Gujarat from a village to India’s first digital village last year. Its success motivates us to scale up the initiative a big way—we will now convert 100 villages across the country into digital villages. We will create a cashless ecosystem at these villages, provide vocational training to 10,000 villagers in first 100 days and offer them credit linkages so that the villagers can start their own business ventures,” added Chanda Kochhar, CEO and MD for ICICI Bank. The bank will also provide USSD and SMS-based mobile services to enable transfer of money, receive alerts, statements and also making payments for things such as retail stores or mobile recharge shops. The bank has taken additional measures to provide end-to-end digital ecosystem for a commercial activity as an end-to-end measuring, tracking and payment for milk cooperative society and its members. The company will also set POS (Point-of-Sale) machines at fertiliser and seed outlets for cashless transactions.