SMALL Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) on Thursday said it has entered into a partnership with Google India Pvt Ltd (GIPL) for piloting a social impact lending programme with financial assistance up to Rs 1 crore at competitive interest rates to MSMEs. This partnership with GIPL brings a corpus of USD 15 million (around Rs 110 crore) to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as a crisis response related to COVID-19, Sidbi said in a release. Under it, a loan programme targeted at micro enterprises (having turnover up to Rs 5 crore), with loan sizes ranging between Rs 25 lakh to Rs 1 crore, is being implemented by Sidbi, the release said.

 

“We look to this collaboration to enhance our efforts in expanding the sector’s access to credit and are very eager to see the constructive impact that we can achieve together,” Sidbi’s Chairman and Managing Director Sivasubramanian Ramann said in the release. This also marks Sidbi’s launch of a paperless journey to its customers from on-boarding to the disbursal stage, he added. Google India Vice President and Country Manager Sanjay Gupta said, “In joining hands with Sidbi, which has a deep understanding of the growth needs of this large and dispersed ecosystem, we are pleased to expand our support to these enterprises.”