In 15 months, Mswipe and Happy Loans disburse over 12k loans to MSMEs

Mswipe (an independent merchant acquirer) and Happy Loans (a mass-market digital lender), announced they have disbursed over 12,000 loans to Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) through a digital lending process in the last 15 months.

The announcement comes shortly after The Reserve Bank of India said that the majority of loan defaults (65.32%) in the last financial year is accounted by MSMEs. However, most of merchants hold no previous credit record with the credit bureau, making it difficult to secure formal loans from banks and other financial institutions, according to Mswipe and Happy Loans.

Further, a large section of merchants hail from Tier II and III cities such as Nagpur, Bhilai, Lucknow, and Solapur. The partnership enables merchants to avail first-time formal loans and CIBIL record established.

Commenting on this, Manish Patel, Founder and CEO of Mswipe, said, "Of the 25-30 million small enterprises in India, the vast majority are just beginning to establish a digital profile. Mswipe is passionate about creating digital solutions that can help them grow their business and their families' well-being."

Merchants are evaluated by Happy Loans on over a hundred factors before loans are sanctioned. Within this, the two primary criteria are the Mswipe Risk Score (a transaction pattern analysis) and the Mswipe Merchant Profile (a merchant profile generated by artificial intelligence and machine learning). Once loans are sanctioned, merchants are given convenient payback options, such as everyday split settlements.

Manish Khera, Founder and CEO of Happy Loans, added, “Happy Loans is focused to help small merchants and retailers who may not have an exposure to mainstream banking. With 38 million SMEs in India, we are betting on the underserved sector. Mswipe has been the perfect match for our vision to create digital banking solutions for the mass-market."

The loans disbursed by Mswipe and Happy Loans in the last 15 months were of an average value of Rs 31000. By FY 2020, they aim to disburse loans worth Rs 750 crore to MSMEs.