HBL has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with GROWTECH Services, a leading agriculture technology company. According to the MoU, GROWTECH Services will provide technological solutions to HBL to tackle the agricultural challenges faced by farmers. The signing ceremony was attended by Mr. Adnan Pasha, Chief of Staff to the President and CEO HBL and Mr. Suhail Siraj, Head of Retail Banking North together with GROWTECH Services team.
On the occasion, Founder GROWTECH, Mr. Faisal Bilal stated that Pakistan’s agricultural sector is facing challenges with regards to declining productivity and our platform purpose is to tackle these challenges with closer engagement of farmers, financial institutions and other stakeholders involved. Our vision to bring all the agriculture stakeholders on one platform. Mr Shahnawaz Mahmood co-founder and former Director on the Board of PSX and PMEX mentioned that we are pleased that one of the Pakistan’s largest commercial banks in the domain of rural banking has joined hands with us to avail our services which will help to improve output yield while reducing input costs for farmers. Our platform also provides dashboard for banks to improve credit risk management. This will improve farmers’ earning and in turn will accelerate overall agri-economy which is aligned with HBL objectives. Co-founder Mr. Abdul Rehman Mahmood informed the participants about contribution in the digital economy through affordable solutions and devices particularly Digit smartphones.
Mr. Adnan Pasha informed about the strategy of HBL for rural banking and its contribution to the agriculture sector of Pakistan. As a result of HBL strategy, farmers productivity has increased significantly. This will help for further development of agronomy in Pakistan. Mr. Pasha appreciated the efforts and objectives of GROWTECH SERVICES which are aligned with HBL vision for agriculture sector.
Through this collaboration, HBL farmers will have access to state-of-the-art technology services provided by GROWTECH. The platform will provide remote sensing based services to HBL beneficiary farmers and will help to solve agricultural land problems, determination of affected areas, crop health and nutrition needs. Through the platform, recommendations will also be made to the farmers for a balanced fertilizer plan to help reduce the input cost. GROWTECH is working on scientific basis with its own team of agronomists guiding the farmers with their analysis and recommendations.
The company has also developed an application, GROWPAK which is providing relevant functionalities to all the stakeholders and will also include marketplace such as farmers’ e-shops. GROWTECH has been providing its services to corporates and individual farmers across the country.
Mr. Pasha also visited the assembly line of Digit smartphones and appreciated the efforts to locally assemble affordable smartphone, Pakistan ka Smartphone, for the masses and farmers can also be potential users of such phones for digital inclusion.
