Snapdeal’s Capital Assist programme has reached out to 1,200 small and medium-sized enterprises across 300 cities in the country and disbursed loans of around Rs 300 crore till date.

The e-tailer has tied up with 25 financial institutions under its Capital Assist programme, which includes HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Yes Bank, Tata Capital, Reliance Capital, and L&T Finance, among others.

In May, Snapdeal had tied up with State Bank of India to address the working capital needs of SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses). “Following the tie-up with Snapdeal, SBI is doing unsecured lending for the first time,” said Vijay Ajmera, Senior Vice-President of Capital Assist Programme at Snapdeal.

Under the facility, SMBs have picked loans between Rs 30,000 to Rs 3 crore. While 70% of sellers have availed loans under the value of R10 lakh, the average size is close to Rs 30 Lakh, according to Ajmera. “The facility has led to increased loyalty towards the platform as they are able to raise money without collateral or lengthy documentation,” he added.

Ajmera said most of the times SMBs get restricted due to regulatory logjams and businesses which are barely three months old find it difficult to avail the loan facility offered by banks. But Snapdeal follows the scoring process for these sellers based on analytics on its platform and shares the same with banks which help them access credit worthiness of a seller.

Currently, Snapdeal has a pool of about 275,000 sellers on its platform and  over the course of next six months, Snapdeal targets disbursing loan of Rs 1,000 crore adding 1,000 SMBs under the programme every three months.

Source: The Financial Express