59-minute MSME loan portal sanctions Rs 35k Cr, becomes India’s largest fintech loan platform
Web portal PSBloansin59minutes.com, where MSMEs can avail loans of up to Rs 1 crore in just 59 minutes, has become the country's largest online lending platform after sanctioning loans worth over Rs 35,000 crore, PTI reported. A report by global financial firm Credit Suisse has confirmed that this figure has given the title to the fintech portal.
The portal was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2018 and aimed to make credit access and banking for MSMEs transparent and hassle-free. Rajiv Kumar, Secretary, Financial Services, guided the design of the platform to ensure loans were disbursed to MSMEs in seven to eight days after approval.
He said, “The automated loan processing system has not only brought in ease but is also fostering transparency. It has put an end to the discretion at the bankers' end because in-principle approval of loans for MSMEs now does not require human intervention.”
Kumar also said data points are now linked and there is no scope for information asymmetry. “It will also end the era of giving false information like different income statement to banks and tax authorities," he said.
PTI also reported that 1.62 lakh MSMEs have been approved for a loan since the portal’s launch, and that 1.12 lakh MSMEs got the final nod. Further, 35,517 units got new loans worth Rs 10,047 crore, while 77,369 units received renewal loans of Rs 25,609 crore.
Credit Suisse added that the quantum of loan processing through this portal was much larger than the Rs 6,500 crore of cumulative disbursements by two of the largest online SME lending NBFCs over the past three years.
The report added that the SME lending market continues to be dominated by offline lenders, but several online models have developed and become popular. It gave the example of Lendingkart, set up in 2014, which has disbursed about Rs 1,700 crore, and Capitalfloat, which has disbursed Rs 4,500 crore in the six years since its inception.
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