Easy loans: Banks to sanction retail loans through portal.
Banks will soon move to sanctioning retail loans through ‘psbloansin59minutes.com’, State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Rajnish Kumar said at an industry event on Monday.
Kumar said that the platform, which is presently used to sanction loans to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), makes use of documentary tools like goods and services tax (GST) returns, income tax (IT) returns and bank account statements. “The same platform we will use later for retail loans. It can become a very powerful platform. The one thing is we need awareness and the other is that the turnaround time after the sanction must be reduced.”
The platform had been launched with 59-minute sanction for loans ranging between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 1 crore. Later, the ceiling was raised to Rs 5 crore for SMEs.
“They can apply, they get in-principle approval. I have given written instructions to my people down the line that there is no accountability as far as the amount sanctioned is concerned,” Kumar noted. “Loans up to Rs 5 crore can be easily done based on data analytics. After that existing process, it is still use of data, but manual judgment and decision-making will come in.”
Industry members claim that the turnaround time after loan sanctions through the portal has been long. In a meeting with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman earlier this month, an industry association raised a complaint to this effect.
“As against sanctioned, only 10% is being disbursed by banks under 59-minute scheme,” said Ashok Saigal, co-chair of CII MSME Committee. Under the scheme, MSMEs registered under the GST are eligible for loan up to Rs 1 crore in just 59 minutes through ‘psbloansin59minutes.com’ portal. The MSMEs also complained that despite 70% guarantee from the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises, the firms have not been able to secure loans from banks in many cases.
