Supporting Digital Financial Inclusion for Farmers

(Funded by USAID)

During 2019-2021, The Right Kind successfully co-implemented a financial inclusion project with Bank Asia Limited, where socially recognized input retailers were identified and oriented to endorse sincere fish farmers for loans who were later linked with Bank Asia agents for bank account opening and loan repayment. With funds from USAID, and supervision from Bangladesh Aquaculture and Nutrition Activity project managed by WorldFish, TRK helped identify farmers suitable for loans while guiding retailers and farmers on the digital loan process, which started off from opening bank accounts to ensuring repayment of loans. In addition, TRK provided advisory support to farmers. An endline survey of 120 respondents out of 445 loan recipients across three districts – Jashore, Satkhira and Barisal shows the farmers value advisory support as much as access to finance. This suggests for rural customers, especially farmers, the outcome of a loan will be optimal if it is complemented by financial and technical advisory support.

Step by step process highlighting engagement of TRK, Bank Asia, and retailers to ensure financial assistance for farmers.