• The programme encompasses digitisation of transactions and other commercial activities besides providing vocational training, credit facility and market linkage to help villagers earn a sustainable livelihood
• 11,300 villagers, including more than 7500 women, have been trained free of cost across seven vocational courses in these digital villages in the past 100 days
• ICICI Group will transform another 500 villages into ‘ICICI Digital Villages’ by December 2017 and train another 50,000 individuals

New Delhi: ICICI Group today dedicated 100 ‘ICICI Digital Villages’ to the nation at an event in New Delhi marking the bank’s efforts to partner the nation’s progress by empowering rural India. Shri Arun Jaitley, Hon’ble Union Minister of Finance, Defence & Corporate Affairs inaugurated the event, ‘ICICI Rural Summit – ‘Sashakt Gaon, Samriddh Bharat’.

The inauguration of the digital villages follows the bank’s commitment given in November 2016 to transform 100 villages into ‘ICICI Digital Villages’ in as many days. The programme involves end to end digitisation of transactions and other commercial activities, providing vocational training to villagers, extending credit facility and helping the villagers to access markets and earn a sustainable livelihood.

Speaking at the event, Ms. Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director & CEO, ICICI Bank said: “ICICI Group has always believed that the key to building a prosperous nation is through empowering its villages. In line with our vision of ‘Sashakt Gaon, Samridhh Bharat’, we have transformed 100 villages across the country in 100 days. We have created a less cash ecosystem at these villages, provided vocational training to over 11,300 villagers, including more than 7500 women and offered them credit linkages. We have done all of these in the past 100 days.

It is a great honour for us to have the Hon’ble Union Minister, Shri Arun Jaitley here with us today to inaugurate the ICICI Rural Summit. Our objective through this initiative has been to show that technology and skilling can be used to eliminate barriers that separate rural and urban India. I am confident that this large project will significantly contribute to the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of both ‘Digital India’ and ‘Make in India’. We intend to expand the number of such villages by another 500 by December 2017. In the process, we will train an additional 50,000 individuals and impact 12.5 lakh lives.”

These villages are spread across the length and breadth of the country, the villagers here can use digital channels for banking and payments transactions. They can also open bank accounts using Aadhar-based e-KYC (electronic Know Your Customer), make cashless payments at retail stores using Point-of-Sale (POS) machines and use an SMS based mobile solution. Villagers can also deposit and withdraw cash at their doorstep. The digitisation at the village dairy co-operative units enables the societies to pay the members digitally and directly into their bank accounts.

Additionally, ICICI Bank in association with ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth (ICICI Foundation), the CSR arm of the ICICI Group, is imparting free vocational training to the villagers with a special focus on training women. As of now, over 11,300 villagers, including more than 7500 women, have been trained in the last 100 days to help them earn a sustainable livelihood. The bank is also extending credit facilities to credit-worthy trained villagers in a bid to boost self-employment opportunities in the villages. The programme has positively impacted the lives of nearly 2.5 lakh people here.

This ambitious move of transforming over 100 villages into digital villages is inspired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision to scale up the digital village programme. In January 2015, he had dedicated the first ‘ICICI Digital Village’ at Akodara in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat, to the nation at an event commemorating 60 years of the ICICI Group.

The 100 villages which have been transformed into ‘ICICI Digital Villages’ are located across 17 states in India. These include 16 in Gujarat, 14 each in Maharashtra & Madhya Pradesh, 12 each in Tamil Nadu & Karnataka and 11 in Rajasthan among others.

The ‘ICICI Digital Villages’ initiative have three dimensions.

The first dimension is to enhance access to seamless and digital banking. For that:

• ICICI Bank is using Aadhar-based e-KYC to help villagers open accounts in a paperless manner, without submitting physical documents. The saving accounts are linked to Aadhar to enable direct transfer of government benefits into these accounts. There is a dedicated ICICI Bank branch in each village to service these accounts.

• The bank has provided an SMS based mobile service which facilitates the villagers to transfer funds, receive SMS alerts & mini-statements and know their account balance. It is available in 10 regional languages and functions on basic feature phones as well. These languages are Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu. The bank has also set up POS machines which enables the retailers at the village including merchants, ration shops and village dairy cooperatives to accept digital payments. The Bank has also equipped Business Correspondents (BC) at these villages with micro-ATMs with GPRS facility. This allows villagers to deposit and withdraw cash by authenticating themselves with their Rupay debit card or through Aadhar based biometric authentication. Over 260 POS and micro-ATMs have been installed across these villages.

• Additionally, the bank has created a cashless payment solution for the village milk cooperative societies and its members for sale of milk. Available across many villages, it has enabled the members to receive money directly into their accounts.

The second dimension of the initiative is to impart livelihood training to the villagers. For that:

• ICICI Foundation has imparted free-of-cost training under its ‘ICICI Academy for Skills – Rural Initiative’ programme at these villages. Any resident of the village is eligible to get the training free of cost. The skill training is offered in a range of disciplines, which are identified based on the local economy around a particular village.

• The list of the disciplines includes comprehensive agriculture, dairy & vermicomposting, agriculture equipment service & repair, dress designing and sandstone cutting, mobile phone servicing and electrical home appliances. These trainings are of duration of 15 to 30 days.

The third dimension of the initiative is to provide credit linkages to enhance livelihood opportunities. The key elements are:

• ICICI Bank facilitates the villagers to form Self Help Groups (SHGs) and Joint Liability Groups (JLGs) and then offers loans to the members. ICICI Bank is also extending loan facilities to the credit-worthy villagers in the form of Kisan credit cards, gold loans and farm equipment loans among others. The bank sanctions these loans using tablet devices at the door step of the villagers and SHGs, thus helping them to save time and effort to travel to a nodal branch.

• The bank and ICICI Foundation assist the villagers in selling products through their market linkages in the local and nearby catchment areas

About ICICI Bank Ltd: ICICI Bank Ltd (NYSE:IBN) is India’s largest private sector bank by consolidated assets. The Bank’s consolidated total assets stood at US$ 144.7 billion at September 30, 2016. ICICI Bank’s subsidiaries include India’s leading private sector insurance, asset management and securities brokerage companies, and among the country’s largest private equity firms. It is present across 17 countries, including India.

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• The largest village promotion programme in the country encompassing digitisation of transactions & commercial activities in villages, vocational training and credit facility to help villagers earn a sustainable livelihood
• 10,000 underprivileged villagers will receive free vocational training within 100 days
• The ambitious project is inspired by the success of India’s first digital village created by ICICI Bank at Akodara in Sabarkantha district, Gujarat last year

Mumbai: ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector bank by consolidated assets, announced that it will transform 100 villages into ‘ICICI Digital Villages’ in as many days. The announcement is a part of the bank’s continuing effort to provide digital ecosystem across the country, including rural India, in the wake of demonetisation of high value currencies.

These villages, which will be spread across the length and breadth of the country, will enable villagers to use digital channels for banking and payments transactions. There, villagers will be able to open bank accounts using Aadhar-based e-KYC and make cashless payments to retail stores through a unique SMS/USSD-based mobile solution.  Additionally, ICICI Bank in association with ICICI Foundation for Inclusive Growth (ICICI Foundation), the CSR arm of the ICICI Group,  will impart vocational training to nearly 10,000 underprivileged villagers, especially women, to help them earn a sustainable livelihood. The bank will also extend credit facilities to the trained villagers in a bid to boost self-employment opportunities in the villages.

This is the largest village promotion programme in the country encompassing digitization of transactions & commercial activities, vocational training and credit facility to help villagers earn a sustainable livelihood.

This ambitious move is inspired by immense success of India’s first digital village, created by ICICI Bank at Akodara in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat. Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi dedicated the ICICI Digital Village at Akodara to the nation last year at an event commemorating 60 years of the ICICI Group.

Ms. Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank said, “ICICI Bank continues to be a catalyst to accelerate development in our country. We strongly feel that technology can play an important role in putting development on a fast lane. 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. I am confident that this large project will contribute significantly to the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of a Digital India.”

All these ICICI Digital Villages will have three dimensions.

The first dimension is to enhance access to seamless and digital banking. In order to do so:

• ICICI Bank will use tablet-based banking and Aadhar-based e-KYC to help villagers open accounts in few hours without submitting physical documents. All adults in the villages will have saving accounts, which will be linked to Aadhar to enable direct transfer of government benefits into these accounts. There will be dedicated branch and ATM of ICICI Bank to service these accounts.

• The bank will provide a unique SMS & USSD based mobile service which will facilitate the villagers to transfer funds, receive alerts & statements and make payments to retail stores by using their mobile phones. This SMS banking will be available in regional languages and will function on basic mobile phones. The Bank will also set up end-to-end merchant infrastructure that will enable the retailers at the village to accept mobile based payments.

• The bank will also create a cashless, digital payment ecosystem for the predominant commercial activity of these villages. For example, at Akodara, it has created an end-to-end measuring, tracking and payment solution for the milk cooperative society and its members for sale of milk. This will be replicated in the upcoming ICICI Digital Villages too. Additionally, activities like payments to farmers from mandis and payment from farmers to labourers among others, will be brought under digital payment ecosystem. The bank will also set up Point-of-Sale (POS) machines at seed and fertiliser outlets for cashless transactions using Rupay cards.

The second dimension of the initiative is to impart livelihood training to the villagers. For that:

• ICICI Foundation will impart training under its ‘ICICI Academy for Skills – Rural Initiative’ programme at these 100 villages. It will train 100 people in each village, especially women within as many days. Any underprivileged villager, in the age bracket of 18 to 40 years, is eligible to get the training free of cost. The skill training will be offered in a range of disciplines, which will be identified based on the local economy around a particular village. The list of the disciplines includes agriculture, dairy & vermicomposting, agriculture equipment repair, hand embroidery, dress designing and sandstone cutting & finishing among others. These trainings will be of a duration of up to 30 days.

• ICICI Bank and ICICI Foundation will enable the trained villagers to be self-employed while continuing to reside at their villages. They will also provide assistance for selling of product/services through their market linkages in the local and nearby catchment areas

The third dimension of the initiative is to provide credit linkages to enhance livelihood opportunities. The key elements are:

• ICICI Bank will facilitate formation of Self Help Groups (SHGs) and offer loans to the members. Additionally, ICICI Bank will also extend credit facilities to the trained villagers in the form of Kisan credit cards, two wheeler loans and farm equipment loans among others.

• The bank will sanction and disburse these loans using tablets at the door step of the villagers and SHGs, thus helping them to save time and effort to travel to a nodal branch.

This initiative of Digital Villages is yet another key infrastructural development initiative of the bank. ICICI Bank has played a key role in the development of infrastructure in India over the last two decades. It has financed the creation of substantial power generation capacity, including India’s largest private sector hydro power project; ports; roads and highways; airports, including India’s first greenfield airport and its largest airport modernisation project; and the roll-out of pan-India telecom networks. Its role in infrastructure has gone beyond that of a financier to assist the government in the development of policies for the sector.

About ICICI Bank: ‘ICICI Bank Ltd (NYSE:IBN) is India’s largest private sector bank by consolidated assets. The Bank’s consolidated total assets stood at US$ 144.7 billion at September 30, 2016. ICICI Bank’s subsidiaries include India’s leading private sector insurance, asset management and securities brokerage companies, and among the country’s largest private equity firms. It is present across 17 countries, including India.

About ICICI Foundation For Inclusive Growth (ICICI Foundation): It was founded by the ICICI Group in early 2008, with a view to carry forward and build upon ICICI Group’s legacy of promoting inclusive growth. ICICI Foundation seeks to promote inclusive growth in India by contributing to the key enablers required for widespread participation in economic opportunities in the country. Through focused initiatives in the identified areas including primary healthcare, elementary education, skill development and sustainable livelihood and financial inclusion, ICICI Foundation is working towards building capabilities and developing innovative models that can be replicated and scaled up in future. ICICI Academy for Skills operates under the aegis of ICICI Foundation.

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