New Delhi: India’s largest public sector lender State Bank of India (SBI) on Tuesday launched ‘SME Digital Business Loans’.
SME Digital Business Loans leverages cutting-edge technology and a robust ecosystem of APIs to streamline the lending process, said SBI. Utilizing authentic data footprints from sources such as ITR, GST returns, and bank statements, the Bank has developed a data-driven credit assessment engine capable of providing sanction decisions within a remarkable 10 seconds after submitting the required details, without any human intervention, the bank added.
The proposition eliminates the need for traditional credit underwriting and lengthy appraisal processes, ushering in a new era of simplicity, speed, and accessibility in MSME lending. Notably, for loans up to Rs 50 lakhs, SBI has waived the requirement for financial statements, relying instead on transaction history and GST returns for appraisal.
“MSME advances have been identified as the focal point for the Bank’s growth and profitability over the next five years and this innovative product marks a significant leap forward in digitalization by offering SMEs a digital loan journey with an end-to-end sanction turnaround time of up to 45 minutes,” SBI said in a statement.
SBI said it registered 20% credit growth in SME Segment and the outstanding credit to SME borrowers crossed the mark of Rs 4.00 lakh crore.
SBI added that this innovative offering will be readily accessible to customers through all channels of the bank, including its website, branches, SME Centres, as well as Internet platforms. Looking ahead, SBI aims to broaden accessibility by extending availability across all its CSP partner touchpoints and via QR codes at outdoor touchpoints in the coming months.
“We are committed to set a new industry benchmark with SME Digital Business Loans, underscoring our constant efforts to drive innovation in MSME lending. We have seamlessly integrated innovation with our customer-centric approach to revolutionize the MSME lending landscape, reducing human intervention and enhancing the ease of doing business, particularly for a segment previously characterized by high costs and manual processes. By leveraging the rich data footprint of MSME units in the ecosystem, we aim to provide the fastest and most intuitive lending process, further solidifying our position as the leading MSME lender in the country,” Dinesh Khara, Chairman, SBI, said.