State Bank of India has so far entered into co-lending tie-ups with 23 non-banking finance companies (NBFCs)/housing finance companies (HFCs) in a bid to enhance its reach to the unserved and under-served populace.
Further, India’s largest Bank has launched an end-to-end digital platform for credit underwriting, sanction, disbursement and collections for NBFC co-lending.
Under this model, SBI has sanctioned loans to more than 2.79 lakh borrowers amounting to ₹2,030 crore, according to the Bank’s latest annual report. Out of this, more than 2.70 lakh accounts were sanctioned in a complete digitised mode for loans up to ₹3 lakh.
With the overall co-lending sanctions, the Bank, as part of co-lending tie-up with nine NBFCs, has sanctioned 1,042 MSME (micro, small and medium enterprise) accounts amounting to ₹469 crore, as on March 31, 2024.
The reach of the NBFCs among the local population helps them assess their financial needs and can help in increasing the Bank’s loan portfolio in these areas.
NBFCs can originate fresh loans in different loan categories in all segments, such as agriculture, SME, housing etc. for creation of priority sector assets as per a prior Master Agreement with the Bank.
NBFC Co-Lending Platform
Under the digital co-lending platform, SBI can exercise its discretion to take or reject its share of loans originated and sanctioned by NBFC, subject to Bank’s due diligence.
The Bank said the aforementioned project is its first business application on the public cloud (Amazon Web Services) and integrated using generically designed APIs (application programming interface).
“Partnered with YUBI, this is a paradigm shift in lending landscape brought in by your Bank through strong collaboration between two diverse organisations (a large Bank and an agile Fintech),” per the report.
The Bank said it is actively looking to finance Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) and has conducted multiple FPO Connect Programmes during the year (FY2024).
SBOSS subsidiary
Further, SBI’s outsourcing services subsidiary, State Bank Operation Support Services (SBOSS), has stabilised its operation in Rural/Semi Urban (RUSU) areas.
The Subsidiary works on a “High Tech, High Touch and Low Cost” mode and has helped the Bank in sourcing more than 6.70 lakh new KCC (Kisan Credit Card) loans amounting to more than ₹13,500 crore.