Japanese firm to fund Indian MSMEs with Capital float

Bengaluru, Jan 27: Japan's leading financial institution Credit Saison is partnering with Indian financial technology non-banking finance company (NBFC) Capital Float for providing digital financing to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) across the country, an official said on Monday.

"We have jointly developed a co-organisation model to provide capital to MSMEs as they will be able to apply for our loans online and receive approvals at the earliest through our technology and Credit Saison's underwriting platform," Capital Float co-founder Sashank Rishyasringa told IANS in an e-mail interview.

The six-year-old city-based Capital Float leverages technology and big data analytics to offer credit to businesses across the country through proprietary digital loan underwriting and domain expertise.

"We plan to invest in India in a big way and build a loan book of $1 billion over the years, with a major part of it in the MSME sector. Our alliance with Capital Float will enable us to deploy a major part of the capital to the MSME sector," said Credit Saison Managing Director (Asia-Pacific) Kosuke Mori on the occasion.

The Union Finance Ministry has encouraged co-lending of MSME loans as a game-changer for scaling up lending to the underserved and unbanked businesses and individuals.

"We have also integrated at a technology stack and API (application program interface) level, enabling a seamless experience for the end-borrower," Mori said.

Capital Float has lent Rs 8,500 crore in digital credit across the country over the last six years since it was co-founded, and manages the largest co-origination ecosystem in the sub-continent.

Credit Float plans to lend an additional Rs 1,500 crore to MSMEs in the ensuing fiscal (2020-21) with Credit Saison, with which we will double-down on their segments where the credit demand is underserved, especially in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.

"Our focus will be on providing credit to small manufacturing and services firms, followed by small retailers using digital payment modes," said Rishyasringa.

Credit Float has raised funding from marquee investors such as SAIF Partners, Sequoia India, Aspada Investments, Creation Investments Capital Management LLC, Ribbit Capital, and Amazon.