E-commerce firm Flipkart has further expanded benefits under its seller financing programme, ‘Flipkart Growth Capital’, to support business continuity and growth for its seller partners.
Walmart-owned Flipkart has forged various new partnerships under the ‘Working Capital’ loan programme. The aim is to increase the breadth of options and opportunities available to lakhs of these marketplace sellers, through multiple lenders.
This is based on their specific business needs. These partnerships have enabled the ‘Growth Capital’ programme to provide fresh credit options to sellers ranging from Rs 5 lakh up to Rs 5 crore.
“E-commerce has played a transformational role for sellers and MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises) in recent years, especially since the pandemic, by providing new avenues for their growth and expansion,” said Ranjith Boyanapalli, senior vice president - marketplace, fintech and payments group, Flipkart. “The scope and the benefits of the Growth Capital programme will help them speed up cash flows and manage procurements better.”
The programme enables sellers to get secured and unsecured loans at interest as low as 9 per cent. With the help of tech synergies across the ecosystem, sanctions happen instantly and disbursals within 24 hours of the application. The Growth Capital programme is designed specifically to enable financial inclusion and independence for MSMEs who operate online. Sellers partners have leveraged the programme’s benefits, resulting in an average loan size increase of 18 per cent year-over-year.
“The application process is now faster, and they can choose from a wide set of lenders as per their requirements,” said Boyanapalli. “At Flipkart, we continue our efforts to democratise our marketplace platform to not only make it more inclusive but also build on technology and innovation to help our seller partners with their digital journeys and ambitions.”
Flipkart’s Growth Capital programme saw a 53 per cent surge in volumes and an 82 per cent increase in value year on year. The programme further aims to bridge the gap between financial institutions and the underserved. With technology as an enabler, a new product called ‘Early Settlement’ has been introduced as part of the programme. This product will help sellers manage their cash flows and procurement requirements with no financial burden. Seller partners opting in for the product will also benefit from processing fee waivers during this period.
Flipkart said it plays a critical role in ensuring that all its sellers, irrespective of their vintage or size of business, have access to affordable credit. The application process has also further been made simpler for them. Flipkart automatically and immediately redirects the interested sellers from its portal to the lender’s portal, enabling faster processing of applications and improving sanction and disbursal timelines.
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