Dairy-tech startup and World Economic Forum’s technology pioneer Stellapps has announced it has signed an agreement with India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) to digitize the dairy milk procurement value chain and promote banking facilities at milk collection centres.
As part of the memorandum of understanding, a pilot project has been launched in 4 villages with 200 farmers at a greenfield dairy in Dharmapuri district of Tamil Nadu. Through the tie-up with IPPB, Stellapps is aiming to bring dairy farmers in the financial mainstream across villages in Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Bihar, and Rajasthan in the coming months.
One of the major challenges faced by small dairy farmers in rural areas is the non-availability of cash and lack of other banking and financial services. IPPB will provide access to cash and other banking services like deposits, Aadhar enabled payment services (AePS), domestic money transfer, bill payments, and other related services. Under the tie-up, Stellapps is leveraging IPPB’s expansive last-mile distribution network of over 136,000 post offices and nearly 190,000 postmen and Grameen Dak Sevaks, equipped with smartphones and biometric devices.
Recently, Stellapps had launched a first of its kind fully automated digital Direct Farmers Payment product for dairy processors, including cooperatives called “mooPay”. This embedded value added service utilises the full stack of Stellapps products and services to facilitate instant payment into dairy farmers’ existing bank accounts, and help them in realizing their actual payments without any delay. The partnership with IPPB is a key step to drive Stellapps’ vision of financial inclusion of dairy farmers.
To make digital adoption easier at the last mile, IPPB has launched products and services catering to the needs and aspirations of various customer segments. Some of these include DakPay App, Digital Life Certificate, Interoperable Doorstep Banking Service driven by Aadhaar enabled payment services, Virtual Debit Card and many other such services. IPPB recently crossed two significant milestones in its growth journey of having over 4 crore customers and disbursing more than Rs 10,000 crore through AePS.
Speaking on the tie-up, J Venkatramu, MD & CEO, India Post Payments Bank said, “This strategic partnership aims to create significant opportunities and expand access to a range of financial services for millions of unbanked and underbanked dairy farmers. With a robust interoperable digital doorstep banking ecosystem in place, and leveraging the last mile network of India Post, IPPB today has the ability to serve various customer segments. With dairy supply chain being an important part of the rural economy, IPPB is committed to empowering dairy farmers.”