ICICI Bank launches digital service for retail merchants, offers credit

Lender says it aims to provide services in 'one single place' to more than 20 million retail merchants.

ICICI Bank on Thursday launched digital banking services for more than 20 million retail merchants in the country.

 “Merchant Stack” will provide grocers, supermarkets, large retail store chains, online businesses, and large e-commerce firms with an array of banking services in ‘one single place’.

The private lender said its research showed the retail merchant segment needs services such as digital and instant account opening, multiple digital collection options, as well as instant working capital availability in one place quick working capital availability, among other things.

The services include “Super Merchant Account”, which is a zero balance account linked to the usage of the bank’s POS (Point-of-Sale) facilities, two instant credit facilities called ‘merchant overdraft’ and ‘express credit’, ‘digital store management’ facility to help merchants take their business online.

All these services will be available on the bank’s mobile application “InstaBiz”.

“There are over 20 million merchants in the country with approximately $ 780 billion in value of transactions in 2020. They are expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. Through these trying times of the pandemic, it is our endeavor to enable the merchants with a digital banking platform that will help them to continue to serve their customers,” said Anup Bagchi, Executive Director of ICICI Bank.

The instant credit facilities for retail merchants will enable the “pre-qualified” merchants with a linked ICICI Bank POS to get up to Rs 25 lakh digitally through the merchant overdraft facility. Further, through express credit, merchants can instantly access the funds for instant settlement of POS transactions, in contrast to the present norm of waiting for a few working days to get credit for sales on POS machines.

The first one, called ‘Merchant Overdraft’ empowers pre-qualified merchants with a linked ICICI Bank POS machine to get up to Rs 25 lakh digitally, instantaneously, and in a completely online and paperless manner. The facility leverages advanced data analytics at the Bank to form a new scorecard with various parameters to assess the credit eligibility of merchants using their POS transactions.