Rural Fintech Startup Jai Kisan Partners With Karnataka Vikas Grameen Bank
Bengaluru: Jai Kisan has partnered with Karnataka Vikas Grameen Bank to expand its capability to provide access to low priced credit and other financial services to rural customers. The MOU marks the start of a long-term partnership with the bank to create grassroot level change in the state of Karnataka at over 2,000 villages through the bank’s 600+ branches where Jai Kisan has a captive farmer base of more than 1,00,000 farmers through its network. Jai Kisan will be one of the first few fintech platforms to fully integrate with the Bank empowering a wide range of rural individuals and enterprises including – Farmers and Farmer Groups, Women Self Help Groups and rural MSMEs with low-cost financial services.
Jai Kisan is bridging the dire need for innovative, practical and tech-driven solutions to deploy financial services in a sustainable, cost-effective and scalable manner in rural India. Jai Kisan brings its unique product offerings to the rural market coupled with a full-stack technology platform to provide a seamless and instant access to financial services to fuel the growth of the rural Indian. Jai Kisan’s new age financial services platform, coupled with the reach of the Bank is expected to deliver significant impact over the course of this partnership to rural Indians in the state of Karnataka. Jai Kisan has been able to leverage its tech platform over the course of its journey to be able to reach some of the remotest pockets in the country. In April and May ‘20, when the entire country was locked down, Jai Kisan worked closely with its existing partner Omniactive Health Technologies to provide providing pre-harvest credit to its farmer network, impacting over 9,000 small and marginal farmers in Karnataka.
Jai Kisan has played a pivotal role in bringing innovation in the rural finance ecosystem in Karnataka through our large-scale partnerships across varied types of value chain and ecosystem partners and has also been playing an active part in providing solutions to several governmental forums. “We are very excited to partner with KVGB to bring low-cost financial services to rural Indians across the state. Karnataka has been one of our most progressive states with a thriving agritech ecosystem and this partnership will help us significantly increase our reach and impact by catering the unserved in the deepest pockets of the state.” – commented Arjun Ahluwalia, Founder and CEO of Jai Kisan. Jai Kisan works with multiple key ecosystem and value chain players in Karnataka, creating substantial social impact in the state – including but not limited to farmer producer organizations, farmer co-operatives and foundations to empower them in their mission to improve rural livelihood and fuel development.
The partnership with KVGB adds another key landmark to Jai Kisan’s illustrious financial services partner roster covering the breadth of financial services in the rural space. Bringing the capabilities of a PSU, KVG Bank brings significant experience and a broad suite of capabilities including low-cost capital, thereby adding a key feather to Jai Kisan’s cap. Jai Kisan works with several Tier 1 banks, NBFCs and digital lenders – For example, Jai Kisan strategically partnered with Avanti Finance to launch India’s First Formal Small-holder Farmer Financing Platform along with a global development financial institution.
Jai Kisan works with over 550+ large corporates, agri-tech startups, rural SMEs and well governed farmer cooperatives and societies to provide its suite of financial services with a digital first approach, to their network of farmers and small and micro businesses.
At an annualized loan disbursal run rate of over INR 280cr as of December 2020 (within 12 months of facilitating the first loan through the platform) and achieving operational profitability already, Jai Kisan has been rapidly expanding its presence across the country over the past year. Jai Kisan has sparked disruption in a largely cash-driven ecosystem with the aim of empowering every rural Indian with a digital and financial footprint and a vision of changing the way money works in rural India.
To further this motive, Jai Kisan launched ‘Bharat Khata’ in April ‘20, a digital ledger and smart business assistant solution for rural businesses to smartly manage their businesses anytime and anywhere. Bharat Khata has captured over USD 250mn of annualized GTV run rate as of December 2020 and has fueled growth and cash flow optimisation for its users driving India’s rural MSMEs towards their goal of digitizing, organizing and formalizing their businesses in the new normal.