Against the backdrop of the demoentization drive, ICICI Bank, the country's largest private sector bank, will make 100 villages cashless and adopt digital modes of payment within 100 days. The bank will be training 10,000 villagers in using digital methods of transaction and will also offer them vocational training. The bank's managing director and CEO Chanda Kochhar said that it was encouraged by the success of making the village of Akodara in Sabarkantha district go digital. - Adults in these villages will be able to open bank accounts using Aadhaar-based eKYC through tablets and make cashless payments at retail stores through an SMS and USSD mobile app. - The SMS banking app will be available in regional languages and function on feature phones. The bank will also set up end-to-end merchant infrastructure that will enable the retailers in the village to accept mobile based payments. - Point-of-Sale (POS) machines will also be set up at seed and fertiliser outlets for cashless transactions using Rupay cards. - 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 said that it will be taking a village's predominant economic activity into account and develop digital solutions for payment. For example, in Akodara, it created an end-to-end measuring, tracking and payment solution for the milk cooperative society and its members. Akodara has 250…
