Amazon begins lending marketplace for its seller ecosystem

Amazon India has launched Seller Lending Network--a marketplace platform where sellers can choose from competitive rates and loan offers options from third-party lenders.

Further scaling its Seller Lending programme launched in 2016, India will be the first country for Amazon where it has launched such dedicated lending product meant for its sellers. In the US, Amazon lends on its own books.

As of now, Amazon has been offering only one specific loan to a seller from a particular lender through the Seller Lending programme.

Currently, Aditya Birla Finance, Bank of Baroda, Capital First, Capital Float, Flexiloans and Yes Bank are Amazon’s lending partners. Collateral-free term loans or overdraft loans ranging from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 crore are being disbursed to sellers with a business history of 4-6 months on Amazon India.

According to Gopal Pillai, GM, and director of Amazon Seller Services, the firm is looking at onboarding more lenders onto the platform to provide small ticket size loans between Rs 50,000 - Rs 1 lakh which will levy interest rate ranging from 12-14 per cent to 10 per cent for deserving sellers.

Also Read: Tough days ahead for lending startups, Flipkart and Amazon to enter business

Besides, the US-based e-commerce giant also announced the launch of Lender Central, a separate portal for Lenders. The platform will be similar to its Seller Central portal for Sellers, which facilitates the exchange of information between lenders and Amazon on a real-time basis.

With more than 3,40,000 sellers on Amazon.in and 32,000 India-based sellers on Amazon.com, the e-commerce company was in talks to foray into lending space last year. Indian e-commerce behemoth Flipkart was also planning to launch consumer-facing fintech lending.

Unlike fintech lenders, acquiring customers for lending startups will be an expensive one for Amazon and Flipkart. However, both have several data points (related to merchants and buyers who have transaction history with them) that can be factored in while lending money to sellers.

Earlier in 2015, Snapdeal had launched a similar service of instant loan approval facility on its seller financing platform, Capital Assist.

The development was first reported by ET.