Bank of Baroda announces a partnership with Snapdeal for its Merchants Community

Chandigarh, 20 July 2016: Bank of Baroda, India’s leading public sector bank and Snapdeal, India’s largest online marketplace, today announced a partnership, through which over 3 lakh Snapdeal sellers will be able to get collateral free working capital loans to scale up and grow their businesses.

Under this arrangement, Sellers on the marketplace can apply for loans through Snapdeal's Capital Assist plat form online and get immediate sanction, thereby enabling “loans at the click of a button”. A specialized centralized Ecommerce cell SMe-Paisa will be set up in the Bank’s Corporate Office in Mumbai. This cell will be equipped with adequate and experienced staff members who will work exclusively towards sanctioning such loans.

Initially loans ranging from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 25 lakhs will be disbursed based on sellers’ track record with Snapdeal and will be extended in the future depending on satisfactory performance. The process of SMe-Paisa will be completely digitized from application to sanction to disbursement. It is designed to reduce the merchant financing pain points i.e higher interest rate from alternate lenders and will reduce TAT.

On this occasion Shri P S Jayakumar, Managing Director & CEO, Bank of Baroda, said, “The product SMe-Paisa marks Bank of Baroda’s foray into algo based lending and we are extremely excited to partner with Snapdeal for this one of its kind initiative. The Bank would be able to leverage its widespread network with Snapdeal’s widespread seller program. The collaboration will enable the Bank to tap the fast growing e-commerce space by offering seamless and easy credit facilities to these sellers. The complete digital sanction process assesses merchants’ credit worthiness based on his vintage with the platform rather than traditional metrics from balance sheet, IT returns, etc”.

Commenting on the association Shri Vishal Chadha, Senior Vice President, Market Development, Snapdeal, said “We are delighted to partner with Bank of Baroda. This initiative is another step in our journey towards building and encouraging a friction less support system for sellers who have limited access to capital. The Capital Assist program has already enabled 1200 Snapdeal sellers to avail of loans amounting to more than INR 300 + crores. We are confident that having Bank of Baroda as a partner will further strengthen our effort towards revolutionizing credit facilities for SME’s in India”