SBI launches new 15-minute facility for MSMEs to avail loan against sales invoices

MSME Sahaj will help MSMEs to avail credit against their Goods and Services Tax (GST) registered sales invoices of up to Rs.1 lakh in less than 15 minutes. Public sector lender State Bank of India (SBI) on Monday announced MSME Sahaj, an online business loan solution for MSMEs to avail credit against their Goods and Services Tax (GST) registered sales invoices of up to Rs 1 lakh. SBI said the new solution will have a turnaround time of less than 15 minutes from applying for the loan to documentation and disbursement of the amount, without any manual intervention.

According to the bank, the closure of the loan would also be automated on the due date. The underwriting will be based on multiple data footprints of a business including GSTIN, bank statements, CIC (credit information company) data base, etc. using machine learning model. Speaking on the launch, Dinesh Khara, Chairman, SBI, said, “MSME Sahaj is crafted with the vision of providing MSME units faster and easier finance using digital mode with self-initiated end-to-end journey. MSME Sahaj is a result of our endeavour to integrate innovation and a customer-centric approach to revolutionize the MSME lending universe, reducing human intervention and enhancing the ‘ease of doing business’.”

The new initiative essentially caters to the ‘on-tap’ short-term credit need of micro enterprises, part of the GST regime for their working capital. Existing MSME customers of SBI looking to unlock the cash flows instantly can access the service through SBI Yono. SBI said MSME Sahaj is “meant to cater to sole proprietorship non-credit customers of State Bank of India having a satisfactory current account with the bank. Importantly, the latest solution comes days after SBI announced a 45-minute digital loan facility for MSMEs. The new solution leverages authentic data sources including ITR, GST returns and bank statements to underwrite loans quickly. SBI said it 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.”