Axis bank launches 'Kisan Card'

Over a decade after the state-run banks launched Kisan Credit Cards, private sector lender Axis Bank today introduced its own card which is aimed at helping farmers access liquidity round-the-clock.
The bank, the third largest from the private sector space in the country, launched the "Kisan Card" through which a farmer can withdraw up to Rs 1 lakh per day from automated teller machines (ATMs), it said in a statement.
The card will be offered to agrarian customers on their cash credit crop loan accounts and will also help them reduce the interest burden as the interest payments start after drawal of the money, it said.

The bank's executive director and head of retail banking, R K Bammi, said at present 90-95 per cent of such customers come to the bank branch for transactions and the bank expects 30-40 per cent farmers to migrate to this alternate channel.
It can be noted that the Kisan Credit Cards scheme was introduced in August 1998 and since then, a host of banks, a majority of them in the state-run space, have launched such cards.
In the statement, Axis Bank claimed it is "first new generation private sector bank to launch an electronic Kisan Card on the RuPay platform.