State-owned State Bank of India has just joined digital invoice discounting marketplace – Invoicemart, as a financier to help in unlocking working capital for more than 1,400 MSMEs that are a part of the platform.
MSME-driven initiatives like Trade Receivables Discounting System (TReDS) has enabled working capital finance to MSMEs and is expected to become a major channel of financing for the MSME segment. Currently, Invoicemart has 22 financiers on the platform, which is expected to grow to 25 by the end of February 2019.
SBI Chief General Manager (SME and Supply Chain Finance) Narayanan Sadanandan said: “Elevating the MSME segment has been a prime focus at State Bank of India, and TReDS has been substantial in helping this segment with easy financing options. We have taken several steps to ensure timely delivery of credit to MSMEs through other initiatives and this association is another step towards the process of digitisation.”
Commenting on the initiative, TReDS Ltd CEO and MD Kalyan Basu said, “We are glad that India’s largest and oldest bank – State Bank of India has come on-board the Invoicemart platform. State Bank of India has had a huge franchise in supporting MSME financial inclusion and this association will not only help with formalising and digitising the MSME lending process but will also pave a way for MSMEs to find cheap financing options in a transparent and easy manner via TReDs.”
MSMEs are the cornerstone of the Indian economy as they are pivotal in creating a large number of employment at meagre cost of capital in comparison to larger industries. With the recent announcement on 2 per cent subvention for MSMEs for loans up to Rs 1 crore in Budget 2019 along with the extension of GeM platform to support domestic services and trade, the government has tried to support this segment immensely.
A number of scheduled commercial banks and public sector banks have registered themselves on the TReDS platform since the positive push from the government in 2018. This has helped pave a way towards MSME inclusion through a transparent bidding mechanism that ensures faster financing at competitive market rates.
Invoicemart was launched in 2017 and has since crossed Rs 2,020 crore in business volumes.(UNI)
