Success in modern farming depends on a proper combination of money, management, and marketing, primarily driven by credit. The basic role of credit in agriculture and allied sectors is to provide capital to acquire any kind of productive assets, land, machinery, etc making the availability of credit an important lever in helping farmers set up or expand their practices in the agriculture and allied sector.

Inadequate information about the bank loan products, cumbersome paperwork, multiple visits to the bank to seek loan approval, and lack of formal borrowing history of the applicant have posed a challenge for farmers and agri entrepreneurs in availing institutional credit. At the level of banks, there is low visibility on the quantum of loan applications received and sanctioned due to the offline record-keeping and processing of the loan application.

To ensure access to formal credit for farmers and agri entrepreneurs and improve the visibility of the credit pipeline across stakeholders, a common credit portal for the agriculture and allied sector was conceptualised.

SAFAL (Simplified Application for Agricultural Loans) is a one-stop solution for farmers and agri entrepreneurs to avail formal sector credit from public sector banks, private sector banks, regional rural banks, cooperative and small finance banks. Through SAFAL, farmers and agri entrepreneurs can access 300+ loan products offered by 40+ banks.

The portal and mobile application will play the role of a facilitator between the farmers and the banks by providing the loan applications recorded on the portal, and in no way shall interfere with the internal processes followed by the banks for application processing.