Amazon partners with Yes Bank for faciliting merchant loans

Amazon has partnered with Yes Bank to provide to provide working capital loans to merchants on its platform as it looks to boost business during the festive season and overtake reigning e-commerce champion Flipkart.

Sellers on Amazon will get access to unsecured financing at competitive rates at with quicker turnaround times enabling them to keep abreast with their monetary needs in the fast paced online commerce space. The partnership will see the bank also become the primary corporate banker for Amazon in India.

"To help sellers make the most of the festive season, we have partnered with YES BANK under our Seller Lending Program to help them catalyse their growth on our platform. We have made the end to end process quick and easy allowing our sellers to focus on their core business," said Gopal Pillai, Director of Seller Services at Amazon India, said in a statement.

Amazon had launched its seller lending programme earlier this year, making it easier for its merchants to get loans ranging between Rs 5 lakh and Rs 2 crore. Initially the company had tied up with Mumbai-based non-banking financial company (NBFC) Capital First, but will now use Yes Bank to power such loans.

Further, the partnership will provide Yes Bank with business from part of Amazon's 120,000-strong seller base in terms of maintaining current accounts, enabling forex transactions and payment gateway, apart from disbursing business loans to them.

"As a knowledge driven bank, Yes Bank understands the specific needs of MSMEs and we are proud to partner with Amazon India to provide comprehensive banking solutions to Amazon sellers," said Pralay Mondal, Head of Retail Business Banking at Yes Bank.