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Informist, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025

 

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--NABARD head: Looking to reduce governance issues in co-operatives via tech 
--CONTEXT: NABARD Chairman Shaji KV speaks at Global Fintech Fest 
--NABARD head: Need wider scope of credit scoring models 
--NABARD head: Should incorporate UPI use into credit scoring models 
--NABARD head: Working with regional rural banks for tech invest, branding 
--NABARD head: Microfin institutions must be more responsible while lending 
--NABARD head: Agri-fin sector nearly saturated; more scope in MSME lending 

 

MUMBAI – The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development's Chairman Shaji K.V. Wednesday said the company is looking to reduce governance issues in co-operatives through technology. The All India Financial Institution had said Tuesday it was working to roll out an information technology solution for rural co-operatives by the end of the fiscal year in March.

 

Talking at the Global Fintech Fest 2025, Shaji said lending to micro, small and medium enterprises has more scope to grow than agriculture finance. He expects MSME lending to grow by around 15% annually over the next three-four years, while agriculture finance may only grow by 20% in total by 2029 from the INR-20-trillion outstanding lending currently.

 

The chairman also said microfinance institutions must be more responsible and attentive while lending. He said banks should incorporate unified payments interface usage into the credit scoring models. Shaji was optimistic that the innovation by MSMEs would lead to better outcomes for farmers and in the agricultural sector. "We have to have an iterative model for a payment scoring bonus, and then integrate with the credit scoring model, or the graphic credit scoring model," the chairman said.

 

NABARD is also working with regional rural banks to invest in technology. After the amalgamation of regional rural banks earlier in 2025, Shaji said they had larger balance sheets and could afford to spend more on information technology infrastructure, which they were lagging in earlier. He said, although the regional rural banks deal with "phenomenal" amount of transactions, the digital adoption in these banks had been very minimal because of their small size earlier. Moreover, NABARD is encouraging regional rural banks to have uniform branding across the country, with some variation to note which state they serve.

 

On Wednesday, NABARD also said that Fambo Nutrition Pvt. Ltd. had bagged an investment of INR 200 million from the AgriSURE fund operated by its wholly owned arm NABVENTURES Ltd. This was the fund's first investment. It has a corpus of INR 7.50 billion and plans to invest up to INR 250 million each in up to 85 start-ups.  End

 

Reported by Aaryan Khanna and J. Navya Sruthi 

Edited by Deepshikha Bhardwaj

 

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