• A one-stop shop, the Seller Lending Network offers a range of loan offers to sellers from multiple third-party lenders.
Bengalore : Amazon India recently announced the launch of its Seller Lending Network, further scaling its Seller Lending program (launched in 2016), to offer sellers on Amazon.in loan options from multiple third party lenders. Building on the core value proposition of Amazon.in, the new Seller Lending Network will provide: (1) Wider Selection: Sellers can now choose loan offers tailored for their business needs from multiple lenders and loan types (term loans or overdraft loans) (2) Better Value: Sellers stand to save ~150 – 250 bps on interest rates due to competitive rates offered by the lenders (3) Greater Convenience: Sellers can now avail loans via an online application process with minimal documentation and a very quick loan approval process of 2-3 days for new loans, and intra day approval for existing loan renewals.
With this launch, a seller can perform all loan-related activities including viewing multiple loan offers, applying for loans and easy/automatic loan repayments by linking their Amazon sale proceeds to their loan account, all on Amazon’s Seller Central portal.
Gopal Pillai, GM & Director Seller Services, Amazon India said, “We are extremely happy to launch the Seller Lending Network, to further simplify and ease access to working capital for sellers through our banking partners. This is, in-fact, the first geography where Amazon has built a lending program like this for sellers. Our endeavor is to make the end-to-end process quicker and convenient, allowing sellers to focus on their core business and grow. At the same time we are also focused on giving an enhanced experience to the lending partners – banks and NBFCs through seamless information sharing on seller performance and easy repayment solutions. Interestingly, loan disbursements under our Lending Program has grown 4.5X since 2016 and we have seen that for every rupee that is disbursed an almost equivalent improvement in business is observed by sellers. This gives us confidence that sellers are really looking at us for working capital support and this new program will further enable them.”
“Under the Amazon Lending Program, I am able to see multiple loan offers across multiple lenders. This lets me choose the best product suited for my financial needs based on Loan Amount, Rate of Interest and Type of Loan. The end-to-end process is completely online along with uploading documents and the approval time is awesome compared to financial institution offline,” says seller Jagjot Singh of JSB Healthcare from New Delhi
The Seller Lending Network also has Lender Central, a portal for Lenders (similar to Seller Central for sellers), to facilitate exchange of information between lenders and Amazon. Lender Central facilitates information about seller performance data, loan application status and loan portfolio details. In addition, by using Lender Central, lenders can track performance of a seller on Amazon.in real-time, thereby allowing lenders to better assess the sellers and make loan-decisioning models more comprehensive. Lenders also benefit from Amazon’s machine learning models that provide early warning signals and help them maintain a high quality loan book. Currently, Aditya Birla Finance, Bank of Baroda, Capital First, Capital Float, Flexiloans, and Yes Bank are part of the lending program, offering loans to thousands of sellers through Seller Lending Network. The lending partners benefit from access to a pool of customers, seamless data exchange and loan repayment, thereby simplifying/reducing their operational overheads.
FlexiLoans.com, one of the Lending Partners said, “FlexiLoans has been working with the Amazon Lending program for about 8 months now. Launch of the new network has, 1) Completely automated lead sharing process and API integration 2) Lender Central has made our lives much easier with updation of seller performance and ease of data sharing, among other things that have become a breeze and 3) Easy to follow set up of repayment process for the loans and acknowledgement process.”
Amazon recently celebrated its fifth anniversary in India. Since its launch in June 2013 with a few hundred sellers, today there are over 3,40,000 sellers selling on the marketplace. These sellers have listed over 170 million products on Amazon.in that get purchased by customers residing across all serviceable pin codes in India. More than 50% of the 3,40,000+ sellers on Amazon.in are from non-metros. 90% of the sellers on the marketplace use Amazon.in’s logistics and fulfilment services.
