In order to provide sustainable solutions to the agriculture and rural development related issues, there is a need to design and develop suite of credit and credit plus products and services for NABARD, its subsidiaries and banking sector at large, which will enhance NABARD’s visibility and engagement with stakeholders.

Accordingly, Strategic Planning and Product Innovation Department (SPPID) was set up as a new department on 01 January 2020 to bring in incremental innovation to its existing products and launch innovative products in tune with changing financial sector landscape, clientele needs and the emerging rural landscape, keeping in focus the mandate of NABARD.

Through its core functions, the Department provides critical insights into the environment, creates a visible focus, reinforces proficiency and realizes shared sense of purpose besides help in the Bank in taking informed decisions.

The scope of the department has now been expanded to cover digital and technological interventions of NABARD in the Rural Financial Institutions.

Core functions of the Department

Strategic Planning Functions

• To ensure synergy among goals, objectives, and action plans of NABARD with its primary tasks and responsibility
• To review the vision and mission statements and formulate short/medium/long term plans
• To integrate new products into existing product lines based on the external and internal business environment
• To evaluate the performance, culture, communications, etc., and carry out necessary refinement
• To conduct stakeholder interactions, Town hall meetings, Seminars and Conferences on topical subjects to gain greater insight

Product Innovation Functions

• To use private sector finance knowledge and deep sovereign relations of NABARD to deliver innovative products and solutions to effectively respond to the clients’ needs
• To conduct market research on financial products & development activities and develop conceptual framework for product development
• To examine the scope of expanding collaboration with new and emerging partnerships with corporate and philanthropic foundations.
• To conduct updated analyses on critical market constraints, improve the products and instruments to provide tailored support to public and private sector clients by deploying tools of data analytics.
• To scale up developmental facilitation and promotional initiatives of NABARD into business proposition.
• To work in coordination with all the business departments of NABARD besides offering solutions based on research and analytics.
• To spur innovative thinking and ideation amongst its staff.

Digital, technological and other interventions

• To create an Enterprise Architecture and IT Governance framework
• To digitize Kisan Credit Card loan process leading to setting up of KCC portal
• To promote banking models for agri value chain financing
• To scale up digital interventions in Rural Financial Institutions
• NABARD has set up a dedicated Technology Facilitation Fund (TFF) from its profit with a corpus of Rs.50 crore to support the development of digital technology with the help of tech start-ups. Two proposals were sanctioned amounting to Rs.73.17 lakh under the fund.

Achievements

• Five Year Strategy Plan titled “Pragati-1.0” encompassing business, developmental & supervisory perspectives of the Bank for the period 2023-24 to 2027-28 has been launched from 01 April 2023.
• In close coordination with the Business Initiatives Department, this department redesigned the Rural Infrastructure Assistance to State Governments (RIAS) product with a judicious blend of credit and credit+ interventions both on Programme and Project mode of financing for accelerating infrastructure creation in the States.
• Web portal developed for interest subvention claims of RRBs and RCBs for WSHGs under DAY-NRLM. The portal is live from 11 January 2024.
• Web portal for settling Interest Subvention and Credit Guarantee Fee Claims under Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) Scheme of DA&FW, GoI. The AIF Interest Subvention Portal https://aifis.nabard.org jointly developed by DA&FW and NABARD was launched by the Hon’ble Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare on 28 June 2024.
• Signed Agreement with RBI Innovation Hub (RBIH) for integration of e-KCC (LOS Portal) with Unified Lending Interface (ULI) for sanction of KCC loan by Cooperative banks and RRBs.
• NABARD has signed Letter of Intent with Asian Development Bank on 9th April 2024 for collaboration in multiple areas. This milestone event took place during the Asia and the Pacific Food Security Forum in Manila, Philippines, marking the beginning of a series of significant engagements.
• NABARD received the Association of Development Financing Institutions in Asia and the Pacific (ADFIAP) Award for the “CBS in Rural Cooperative Banks” initiative under the Financial Inclusion category.
• As on 31 March 2024, Cyber Insurance Policies were issued to 85 RCBs effective from 01 April 2024. Realising the benefits of lower premium and comprehensive coverage, many banks approached NABARD to enable them to avail cyber insurance. Accordingly, 26 more banks (including 7 RRBs) were covered under similar arrangement for cyber insurance.
• NABARD has signed Memorandum of Understanding with "State of Maharashtra's Agribusiness and Rural Transformation (SMART)", Government of Maharashtra on 12 July 2024 to establish a partnership for implementation of the FPO Accelerator project, aimed at accelerating the development of FPOs by providing them with comprehensive support services.
• NABARD participated in the Global Fintech Fest 2024, Theme of the event was, "Blueprint for the Next Decade of Finance: Responsible AI | Inclusive | Resilient".
• NABARD conducted Fireside chats, panel discussions on various themes. NABARD also conducted the 'National AgriInnovate Hackathon' to seek innovative, digital solutions to problem statements aligned to mandate of NABARD.
• NABARD has signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with Rabo Partnerships B V on 25th September 2024 to promote digitalisation of rural financial services, enhance agricultural development and improve livelihood of especially the small and marginal farmers.

Work in progress:

• Implementation of Pragati-1.0 initiatives.
• Engaged in designing suitable digital banking products for Agri Value Chain financing.
• Discussions with Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) for identification of potential areas of collaboration.
• Engagement with the World Bank for grounding a pilot on FPO Accelerator in collaboration with Maharashtra government through its SMART programme.
• Digital Crop Loans-eKCC portal on a pilot basis in Cooperative banks/RRBs.
• To accelerate the dispensation of agri-credit especially among landless and tenant farmers, a mechanism to deliver purpose bound loans using the Programmable Central Bank Digital Currency (PCBDC) is being piloted in Andhra Pradesh & Odisha. This marks the first credit product using CBDC as a mode for disbursal of loans.
• Upgradation/extension of CBS and CBS plus services to Rural Cooperative Banks.
• Remaining banks are being approached to avail Cyber Insurance with effect from 01.01.2025.

Contact Information

Shri Manikumar S.
Chief General Manager
4th Floor, ‘C’ Wing
C-24, ‘G’ Block
Bandra-Kurla Complex,
Bandra (East)
Mumbai-400051
Tel: 022 -68120024
E-mail Address: sppid@nabard.org

Information under RTI – Section 4(1)(b)