Bangalore, July 30, 2019: Loan professionals are sharply divided over Union Budget 2019’s MSME focused initiatives, reveals a new survey, by Namaste Credit, an AI-based credit discovery and credit underwriting platform for MSMEs.
Digital initiatives for lending are being well received by the MSMEs
According to the survey, only 53% of respondents say that the Union Budget 2019 will positively impact MSMEs in the next one year. Nearly 26% of them feel the budget may not have any impact on MSMEs. 54% of the respondents feel that the budget is going to impact their (the loan professionals) business in the next year positively.
The survey findings reveal that the government’s digital initiatives are being well received by the MSMEs. Close to 70% of the respondents feel that www.psbloansin59minutes.com is helpful for MSMEs owing to attributes like faster loan approval rates, easy to use interface. 65% of channel partners favor paying and collecting payments through digital platforms.
About 44% feel that zero MDR charges for merchants on digital payments is a positive move by the government, while about 37% pessimistic about it.
“While the Union Budget 2019 is an overall pro-MSME budget, it is interesting to note that it has left the MSME wanting for more. It is noteworthy that digital initiatives to facilitate MSME lending are well received. It is also an indication that the government could put more emphasis on spreading awareness about such schemes and probably
launch more such initiatives to help the MSME sector”, says Gaurav Anand, co-founder, and director of Namaste Credit.
The survey questionnaire was sent to over 7000 loan professionals and SME influencer community comprising of Chartered Accountants, Loan Agents, Financial Planners, across major cities in India, to gauge industry sentiments and on the ground feelers post-budget. These loan professionals leverage Namaste Credit’s AI-based platform to enable faster loan processing for MSMEs.
The survey findings also reveal that only 43% of respondents find that Interchangeability of PAN and Aadhaar to file the tax return is a positive step. An almost equal number of them (40%) feel that the initiative will impact them negatively.
The sector again seems to have divided views on the Pension Benefit Scheme to about three crore retail traders and small shopkeepers, with 53% of respondents being optimistic about the initiative.
About 54% of the respondents feel negative to no impact from the currently introduced corporate tax rebate.
Namaste Credit was founded in 2014 by Gaurav Anand, Lucas Bianchi, and Krishnan Parameswaran. The startup has filed three patents for its AI-driven technology platform, which allows banks to reduce turnaround times for loan approval from three days to three hours. Further, their technology also leads to loan approval rates of 70% or above, which is the highest in the industry. They can achieve this through pre-qualifying SMEs using Big Data and matching them to lenders using their proprietary algorithms
Union Budget leaves Loan Professionals Sharply Divided, says Namaste Credit Survey
