Context:

The purpose of the UNNATI-A2F project is to support financial service providers to more effectively serve the agricultural value chain actors providing appropriate financial products and services. 2 Banks and 2 Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) in Nepal, Everest bank, Laxmi bank, Sahara Cooperatives and Jeevan Bikash Samaj (JBS), who are implementing access to finance projects leveraging digital financial services, have requested technical assistance to support them in their different DFS endeavours.

Objectives:

1. Everest Bank needs support to accelerate their branchless banking business including factors behind agents being a) active b) dormant c) dropped out.
2. Laxmi Bank is offering agricultural credit through its branchless banking channel and would like to assess its existing portfolio, underwriting practice and process flow. The bank looks forward to receiving inputs on how to make the product, process and risk management practice more efficient and at par with international best practices.
3. Sahara and JBS need to be assisted in their strategy to leverage the use of technology to enhance their customer outreach and footprint and thereby enhance their market share and also achieve their financial inclusion goals. Within this, these 2 MFIs need to be provided technical assistance support on streamlining the transition and developing framework and toolkits for appropriate and best practice use of DFS with regards to digitizing their core processes for customer acquisition, loan approval, disbursement and repayment along with saving products and services by providing a digital interface to its field employee or centre leaders.

Deliverables:

1. Market research
   • To understand customer needs and challenges
   • To understand agent needs and challenges
2. Product development plan
3. Agent network management strategy
4. Action plans
5. Toolkits/frameworks to address internal processes
6. Training on the new channel