Amazon India Will Now Facilitate Third-Party Loans For Sellers Under Seller Lending Network

Strengthening its position in India, global ecommerce behemoth Amazon has launched its Seller Lending Network which offers sellers on Amazon India loan options from multiple third-party lenders.

Based on company’s core values, the Amazon Seller Lending Network will provide sellers to choose loan offers tailored for their business needs from multiple lenders and loan types such as term loans or overdraft loans. At the same time, it expects to help sellers save 150-250 bps on interest rates due to the competitive rates offered by the lenders.

Further, the loans can be availed via an online application process with minimal documentation and a loan approval process of two-three days for new loans, and intraday approval for existing loan renewals.

Commenting on the development, Gopal Pillai, GM and 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. 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.”

As part of the Seller Lending Network, 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 sales proceeds to their loan account etc on Amazon’s Seller Central portal.

Further, the Seller Lending Network also has Lender Central, a portal for lenders (similar to Seller Central for sellers), to facilitate an exchange of information between lenders and Amazon.

Lender Central facilitates information about seller performance data, loan application status and loan portfolio details. Also, by using Lender Central, lenders can track the performance of a seller on Amazon.in in real time, thereby allowing lenders to better assess the sellers and make loan-decisioning models more comprehensive.

The company claims that Lenders can also benefit from Amazon’s machine learning models that provide early warning signals and help them maintain a high-quality loan book.

At present, Aditya Birla Finance, Bank of Baroda, Capital First, Capital Float, Flexiloans, and Yes Bank are part of the lending programme, offering loans to thousands of sellers through Seller Lending Network.

Amazon India also believes that the lending partners benefit from access to a pool of customers, seamless data exchange and loan repayment, thereby simplifying/reducing their operational overheads.

One of the lending partners, FlexiLoans.com said, “FlexiLoans has been working with the Amazon Lending program for about 8 months now. The launch of the new network has completely automated lead sharing process and API integration, 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 easy to follow set up of repayment process for the loans and acknowledgement process.”

With a continued commitment to India with investments and product portfolio, Amazon India claims to record over 340K sellers on the marketplace.

Further, more than 50% of the 340K sellers on Amazon India are from non-metros, while 90% of the sellers on the marketplace use Amazon India’s logistics and fulfilment services.

A Citi research report has suggested that Amazon India could be valued at $16 Bn right now. It further added that Amazon India is expected to reach $70 Bn in gross merchandise volume (GMV) and $11 Bn in net sales by 2027.

At the time when fintech segment is also a booming industry in India, Amazon India’s programmes like Seller Lending Network are bound to help both- ecommerce and fintech segments.