ICICI Bank announced on Monday that it has partnered with Amazon India to provide instantaneous and digital overdraft (OD) facilities up to Rs 25 lakh to individual sellers and small enterprises registered on the e-commerce company’s online marketplace, www.amazon.in.
ICICI Bank has established this innovative facility, which operates on the back of an industry-first scorecard, to rapidly analyse credit worthiness of sellers based on their financial profile, including Credit Bureau scores, using advanced data analytics.
The agreement, which is powered by API connectivity, allows sellers to obtain an OD from the Bank in a totally digital procedure, from application to sanction to distribution. Customers of even other banks can use ICICI Bank’s OD service if they are registered as sellers on Amazon.in.
The new credit evaluation system saves merchants time and money by eliminating the need for paper-intensive bank statements or income tax returns to determine credit worthiness. Furthermore, it enables ‘new-to-credit’ and ‘existing MSME borrowers’ to unlock the value of their digital transactions and obtain fast credit.
Pankaj Gadgil, Head- Self Employed Segment, SME & Merchant Ecosystem, on the initiative, said, “ICICI Bank has always believed that access to timely credit and ease of doing business are key parameters for the growth of the MSME businesses. This new and improved process will help the sellers, who may otherwise not get access to adequate credit when assessed in the traditional way of using only balance sheets, bank statements and tax returns. We believe that this new proposition resonates our effort in developing path breaking innovations for MSME customers and will empower them with new avenues of business expansion.”
According to Vikas Bansal, Director of Amazon Pay India, “We are prioritizing our efforts to help sellers on amazon.in bounce back from the disruption owing to COVID-19. Our mission is to enable easy and trusted access to credit for sellers with transparent policies and at low costs. Our partnership with ICICI Bank will provide sellers across India with an OD facility instantly and digitally at affordable rates to meet all their current and future requirements.”
