Facebook India today announced launching a programme in partnership with online lending platform Indifi to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) advertising on Facebook get quick access to credit through independent lending partners. Called the ‘Small Business Loans Initiative’, it is open to businesses registered across 200 Indian towns and cities.
India is the first country where the US social media giant is rolling out this programme, which allows SMEs to avail loans ranging from ₹5 to ₹50 lakh.Facebook India today announced launching a programme in partnership with online lending platform Indifi to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) advertising on Facebook get quick access to credit through independent lending partners. Called the 'Small Business Loans Initiative', it is open to businesses registered across 200 Indian towns and cities.#
Indifi is the first lending partner that the company has tied up with and the programme is built with the potential to bring more partners on board.
The target is to make business loans more easily accessible to small businesses, and reduce the credit gap within India’s micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector, Facebook said.
The company has partnered with Indifi, a lending platform, for loan disbursal. India is the first country where the programme has been launched.
Announcing the launch of the initiative, Facebook India vice president and managing director Ajit Mohan told the media that there is no collateral required for the loan that comes with a pre-defined interest rate of 17-20 per cent within five days. For women led-business, there is a 0.2 per cent reduction in interest rate as well.
The initiative comes after the $100-million Facebook Business Grant the company announced in September 2020 for 30 countries, including India. Close to $4 million was deployed to 3,000 Indian SMEs across New Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru for the companies hit by the pandemic.
While the programme has been co-designed with Facebook, Indifi will be the key decision-taking authority on the loan disbursal and also recovering the loans. Though there is no cap on the number of loan disbursals for the businesses, Mohan expects other players to come on board and more capital to be available in the market.
“The role we are playing is engaging with small businesses, who advertise on Facebook and therefore we are aware of growth opportunities that are constrained by lack of access to capital. We have the opportunity to let them know that there is access to this through the partner,” Mohan explained.
ALCHEMPro News Desk (DS)
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