CII sets up SME finance facilitation centre online

Indian businesses' association Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Monday announced setting up of an online finance facilitation centre for SMEs with an objective to provide advisory and credit facilitation support to SMEs.

The centre aims to operate as a one-stop-shop, aggregating financing options from various major financial institutions. it will match SME financing demands with banks and financial Institutions, and also project large finance requirement across financial institutions.

SMEs will be able to access the online centre through CII's newly launched knowledge portal mycii.in.

"One of CII’s focuses on the MSME front is on technology and to see how we can reach to them with technology. Hence we have launched within CII a knowledge portal called mycii.in, through which we are able to interface with lot of MSMEs across India," said Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII.

Kalraj Mishra, Minister for SMEs, Government of India launched the centre in the presence of Madhav Lal, Secretary, Ministry of MSME, Government of India.

SME Members across India can easily approach this Centre through an online interface for their credit requirement and the Centre will facilitate the SMEs with documentation and preparation of bankable project proposals. On the other hand, the exact KYCs will help Banks / FIs to render quick delivery.

The banks that have signed a MoU with CII for this Centre includes Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Federal Bank, Muthoot Fincorp Ltd, Religare Finvest, DCB Bank, EXIM Bank and State Bank of Travancore.

The centre will conduct outreach programmes in partnership with the Ministry of MSME and the partnering Financial Institutions across the country through the CII Network of offices in states and zones to create awareness among SMEs on the avenues for accessing finance.

The other facilities offered by the centre includes online training on finance management for SMEs, information about SME schemes of the government and financial institutions and access to exports and peer-to-peer networking.

“Today, as our country looks forward to a new phase of economic modernization, industrialization and growth under the leadership of Hon. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Indian MSME sector is capable of growing at a healthy double digit rate, providing the necessary impetus for our national GDP to achieve high single digit growth in the next 2 years” said Banerjee.