Amazon, Capital First in deal to lend to small firms

A day after industrialist Rajan Bharti Mittal pointed out the difficult being faced by SMEs in accessing finance, Amazon has tied up with Capital First Limited, a Mumbai-based non-banking financial company (NBFC), launched a seller lending programme in India.

The programme, which will be offered by its arm Amazon Seller Services Pvt. Ltd, will enable small and medium businesses on Amazon.in to get fast and easy access to working capital. “Capital First will provide secured and unsecured loans to sellers from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 2 crores at very competitive interest rates,” a statement from Amazon said.

According to Gopal Pillai, director and GM, Seller Services, “Sellers on Amazon.in will receive pre-approved indicative offers outlining the loan amount they are eligible for, the associated interest rate and service fee. After filling out the application form which should take less than 10 minutes, they will receive the final loan approval decision within three working and funds will be disbursed to them within two days of approval.”

This scheme was preceded by the hugely successful Easy Ship and Global selling programmes. Mr Pillai said, “Over 90 per cent of our sellers use our delivery services and the number of sellers who used Easy Ship grew three times in 2015.”