Online marketplace Amazon India is ensuring that sellers on its platform have adequate working capital. The Indian arm of the US e-commerce giant plans to provide unsecured micro-loans, as low as ₹1 lakh, at interest rates as low as 10.45-11 per cent at a short span of 3-5 days. The company has tied up with Bank of Baroda for the loans, which can go up to ₹25 lakh.
For Amazon India, this is a kind of extension of its existing Seller Lending programme, which was launched last year, wherein it has partnerships with YES Bank and Capital First for loan amounts of ₹5 lakh-2 crore. With the Bank of Baroda tie-up, the company wants to cater to every strata of sellers. The bank will at present offer the loans on an invite-only basis to the marketplace sellers.
Gopal Pillai, Director, Seller Services, Amazon India, said working capital is the biggest challenge for all sellers.
The company wants to help sellers remove all the barriers in this regard and create an ecosystem where they can focus on growing and expanding their business instead of having to worry about capital, he said.
The rates offered are comparatively cheaper than those being given by online lending platforms.
Pillai added that the loan disbursals are based on various algorithms, including the seller’s performance, account tenure, selling history, customer feedback and compliance, to ensure there are no defaults.
The repayments will be done through a locked account provided by Bank of Baroda, thus helping the bank, too, to grow its customer accounts.