ICICI has become the first bank to introduce satellite data to assess farmers’ credit worthiness. It will conduct these assessments in combination with technologies from agri-tech and fin-tech firms, to offer advanced, remote credit assessment for extending loans to farmers. The technology will involve using advanced satellite imagery to assess farmlands in parameters such as land quality, location, irrigation and year-round crop patterns.
It will then use the collected data to perform analytics for metrics like availability of surface-level water for easy irrigation, extensive crop trends for a particular farmer’s farmlands including types of crops grown, duration between sowing and harvesting, as well as average quality and health of crop yields.
The bank is using readily available satellite images from Indian Space Research Organisation and the U.S.’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the purpose. “We will cover 25,000 villages over the next one month and scale it to 63,000 villages over the next two month,” ICICI Bank’s Executive Director Anup Bagchi said Tuesday, without offering any quantitative numbers on how the project will reduce the cost for the lender as well as the farmers.
The bank is partnering with agri-fin-tech companies specialising in harnessing space technology and weather information for commercial usage.