UNNATI–Access to Finance (A2F) is a sub-component of UNNATI project funded by the Government of Denmark and implemented by Nepal Rastra Bank with technical support from UNCDF. The purpose of the UNNATI-A2F project is to support financial service providers to more effectively serve the agricultural value chain actors providing appropriate financial products and services. The project is already partnering with a number of commercial banks and micro-finance institutions in this regard. Till date, the commercial banks have not been fully able to provide financial services to the rural population residing specially in the remote areas as the cost of operation is high there. However, NRB’s deprived sector lending provision has encouraged the BFIs to disburse a specified portion of their portfolio to the deprived sector directly by themselves or provide wholesale lending to MFIs and cooperatives.
In Nepalese context, micro-finance institutions and cooperatives are playing an instrumental role in expanding the frontiers of financial access and reach-out to the rural areas as they are working across the country. There are approximately 34 thousand cooperatives spread all over the country, out of which, some 14 thousand are savings and credit cooperatives.