Synchrony, UoH to fund blockchain project for farmers

This public-private partnership is a three-year partnership including a grant from Synchrony to the university for the project which will focus on leveraging the blockchain technology

Hyderabad: Financial services company Synchrony signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with the University of Hyderabad to help fund India’s first blockchain project for providing financial services to farmers in need throughout the country. This blockchain project can bring all the parties together – from farmers to financing experts in the supply chain together to simplify the exchange of information and payments.

This public-private partnership is a three-year partnership including a grant from Synchrony to the university for the project which will focus on leveraging the blockchain technology to help lenders provide financial assistance to farmers with no collateral and fixed assets. The main objective of the project is to find ways on how technology can reduce the costs for marginal farmers who cannot access loans from formal channels of lending. It also aims to provide artificial intelligence-based tools to project future cash flows of farmers.

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The project will be headed by Prof Vijaya Bhaskar Marisetty, Professor of Finance, UoH and Dr Varsha Mamidi, faculty member, Machine Learning, UoH is a co-investigator in developing the blockchain.