SBI ties up with Snapdeal to benefit e-commerce sellers

The country's largest lender, the State Bank of India, announced the launch of SBI e-Smart SME to offer easy working capital to online e-commerce players here today.

The bank has tied up with e-commerce major Snapdeal to offer instant loans to its sellers. In a briefing to the media, SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said, "The e-commerce growth has created a new ecosystem enabling more than five lakh sellers to sell product on digital platform. It has also opened up opportunities for the banking industry."

The bank is also planning a similar tie-up with Flipkart, Paytm and Amazon going forward, she said.

"The biggest challenge for SMEs is to raise financing through formal banking is often they don't have collateral or a long history of financial statements to give confidence to lender," added Arundhati Bhattacharya.

However, she also said that women entrepreneurs will have a special concession of 25 basis points. Loans below Rs. 10 lakh will be covered under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana Scheme. The bank had hired management consulting firm BCG to facilitate the development of this credit model.