Coronavirus: Online lender Indifi launches collaborative resource centre for MSMEs
The resource centre aims to benefit around 20 million MSMEs by helping them overcome non-financial predicaments. Indifi has inked several deals that will provide plug-and-play solutions to the problems of MSMEs.
Online lending platform for small and medium businesses (SMBs) Indifi Technologies launched a collaborative resource centre, 'Pragati', to help one of India's worst-hit sector deal with the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.
The resource centre aims to benefit around 20 million micro, small and medium businesses (MSMEs), primarily in the retail space.
Sales have nearly halved for at least 90 percent of open restaurants, and 80 percent of retail shops, a survey conducted by the company showed.
It also revealed that around 85 percent of retail stores, and 70 percent of restaurants open at present are getting lesser credit from their suppliers.
More than three-fourths of the restaurants, and a little over half the retail stores in the country were non-operational during phase 3 of the lockdown.
"When the COVID-19 wave hit India and the lockdown was announced, we saw how it was affecting many of our customers. The demand for credit went down, but MSMEs were tackling many other challenges like disruption in supply chain or looking for manpower to kickstart operations again," said Alok Mittal, CEO and Co-founder of Indifi Technologies.
This compelled the company to come up with an end-to-end solutions provider resource centre that will not only assess the situation of the affected companies, but also come up with solutions to address them.
The company has inked several deals that will provide plug-and-play solutions to the problems of MSMEs. Users have to input some basic details about their business on the platform. No fees will be charged for registering on the platform.
Indifi Technologies also partnered with TiE-Delhi NCR to support its customers in providing growth capital. The launch of 'Pragati' will further help MSMEs overcome non-financial predicaments.
According to a report by Economic Times, more than one-fourth of India's 69 million MSMEs will reportedly shutdown in the wake of the pandemic and the lockdown. Coronavirus-positive cases in India continue to rise, with numbers soon set to hit the 2-lakh-mark.
Edited by Aparajita Saxena