Amazon India has expanded its Seller Lending program, with the launch of Seller Lending Network to enable loans to sellers from third-party lenders such as Aditya Birla Finance, Bank of Baroda, Capital First, Capital Float, Flexiloans, and Yes Bank. No more invite-only basis: Amazon India had launched its seller lending programme in February 2016. The company had partnered with Capital First Limited, a Mumbai-based NBFC) to provide secured and unsecured loans to sellers from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 2 crore. However, these loans were available on the invite-only basis. In September 2017, Amazon India partnered with Bank of Baroda to offer unsecured microloans to its sellers ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 25 lakh. This programmer too was available on the invite-only basis. With this launch, Amazon has opened up a separate Seller Central portal, where sellers 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. Besides this Amazon has also created Lender Central, a portal for Lenders (similar to Seller Central for sellers), to facilitate the 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 the performance of a seller on Amazon.in real-time. How does it work? The sellers will be able to choose loan offers suitable for their business needs from multiple lenders and loan types (term loans or overdraft loans). Sellers can avail loans via an online…
