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The country's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), used artificial intelligence to underwrite nearly Rs 1 lakh crore in MSME loans of up to Rs 5 crore each during 2025-26, a senior bank official said on Wednesday. "In FY26, in 12 months time, we are able to underwrite loans up to Rs 5 crore, both covering the new-to-bank customers, as well as existing customers. Almost Rs 1 lakh crore we were able to underwrite," SBI Managing Director Rama Mohan Rao Amara said at the annual FIBAC event here. He added that the bank is also deploying artificial intelligence, including Large Language Models (LLMs), to automate processing of cheques up to Rs 10,000. The use of AI has helped free up the bandwidth of relationship managers, who earlier spent considerable time collecting data and carrying out preliminary analysis, the official said. Cheques of up to Rs 10,000 account for around 25 per cent of the bank's cheque volumes, and the AI model can read the cheque and verify mandatory fields
The Lok Sabha on Friday passed without a debate a bill that seeks to empower and tackle the issue of delayed payments faced by micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), amid protests by opposition members. The Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development (Amendment) Bill, 2026 has now been cleared by Parliament. It was passed in the Rajya Sabha on August 3. The Bill seeks to address the current challenges faced by the MSME sector by improving the administrative structure and facilitating payment mechanisms. Provisions to deal with delayed payments to MSMEs by prescribing timelines to ensure faster adjudication of disputes, providing recovery of the settlement agreement, and addressing their liquidity issues are part of the Bill. It also seeks to empower courts to order payment of at least 50 per cent of the awarded amount to MSME suppliers if the application to set aside an order is pending for more than six months. MSMEs contribute 31 per cent to India's GDP, 36 per cent to
The Haryana government will soon bring a new MSME policy, Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini said on Saturday. The new MSME policy, which will take the MSME and export sectors to new heights, is under the cabinet approval, but its draft contains several important proposals for the benefit of the industry, Saini said. He said the proposed export freight subsidy support limit has been increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 30 lakh per unit per year. Industries exporting more than 80 per cent of their production will be given special recognition on the proposed Udaan Dwar Portal, enabling them to connect more easily with international buyers, he said. He also said the draft policy proposes affordable insurance products by expanding the scope of the Mukhyamantri Vyapari Kshatipurti Yojana to protect small traders and MSMEs against losses arising from fire, theft, and natural disasters. To further improve ease of doing business, land feasibility certificates will now be issued within 45 working
The practice of bundling soluble and specialty fertilisers with heavily subsidised conventional fertilisers such as urea is hurting innovation and pushing micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the sector towards collapse, according to Rajib Chakraborty, President of the Speciality Fertiliser Association of India (SFAI). In an interview to PTI, Chakraborty said that farmers, as well as the industry, are often placed in a difficult position by this practice, known in trade parlance as "tagging," in which dealers make the sale of subsidised urea conditional on the purchase of speciality products. He said the practice occurs at multiple levels -- company, distribution and dealer -- and has caused significant damage to the industry over the years. As a result, he said, new and improved fertiliser products developed by smaller companies are struggling to reach the market. "The newly invented products or augmented products are actually not reaching the dealer shelf," he said, add
MSME fintech firm Progcap aims to raise up to USD 45 million (approximately Rs 425 crore) from share sales in FY28 to expand its lending business. "We are planning a capital raise through equity dilution next financial year," Progcap co-founder Himanshu Chandra told PTI. It would be through private placement of shares, and the quantum could be in the range of USD 40-45 million, depending on the valuation, he said. "We have enough capital to take care of growth needs for the current financial year. We may look at dilution of equity next financial year," he said, adding that the dilution would be in the single digit. The fintech firm, which obtained an NBFC licence in 2022, has been witnessing very high growth in MSME lending, especially wholesalers and retailers. The fintech is currently present in 500 cities, Tier II, III and IV cities, with over 30,000 borrowers having an average ticket size of Rs 10 lakh. The lending firm focuses on loans to retailers and wholesalers across 10
India represents one of the most dynamic opportunities in global commerce, from where it has sourced goods worth USD 40 billion so far, said US-based retail giant Walmart Inc President and CEO John Furner. Walmart, which had earlier announced to source goods from India worth up to USD 10 billion per year by 2027, is focusing on strengthening entrepreneur and supplier capabilities. "We have already sourced more than USD 40 billion in goods from India and are focused on strengthening entrepreneur and supplier capabilities, raising compliance and quality standards, and helping scale manufacturing so more Indian businesses are ready to export," said Walmart Inc President and CEO John Furner. Under its Vriddhi initiative, which is designed to support MSMEs in modernising, expanding, and reaching their domestic ambitions, the company has supported the growth of over 1.15 lakh entrepreneurs. It is helping them to raise their compliance and quality standards, and to scale manufacturing so