Last-mile credit: IT services company Protean eGov Technologies (formerly NSDL eGovernance infrastructure) on Wednesday announced a partnership with the financial services provider for easy credit access to MSMEs and last-mile through the government’s e-commerce network Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC). Protean and PayNearby will enable a credit marketplace on the ONDC network for easy discovery of loan products and their pricing for borrowers.
Protean will be ONDC’s technology service provider for facilitating credit to borrowers through PayNearby’s network of over 12 lakh outlets. Smart data modelling and the use of frameworks like Account Aggregator (AA) will enable credit extension to thin-file/new-to-credit underserved citizens. Protean will also aggregate multiple Loan Service Providers (LSPs) onto a single platform for borrowers to choose from.
“The Protean-PayNearby partnership will solve many of the use cases that inhibit last-mile penetration. Formal institutions find it expensive to reach rural underserved due to their geographical remoteness and lack of access to customer data. Rural citizens are therefore left with very few choices, often informal and at very high cost,” the company said.
Suresh Sethi, Managing Director and CEO, of Protean eGov Technologies Limited, said, “Bharat is still underserved in terms of access to formal credit. We firmly believe that consent-based data sharing through Account Aggregator will digitally empower individuals with their own data. Towards that, we have partnered with PayNearby to leverage the Account Aggregator and ONDC network to further accelerate financial inclusion and enable credit access for individuals and businesses at the last mile.”
Highlighting the inadequacy in capital access, a TransUnion CIBIL research noted that the credit-served population in the country in 2021 was less than 22 per cent of the adult population, Protean said in its statement. Despite advances in financial inclusion through the JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, and Mobile) trinity, formal credit access to rural and low-income households continues to be a challenge.
Anand Kumar Bajaj, Founder, MD & CEO, of PayNearby, said, “This partnership enables LSPs to offer formal credit to MSMEs and customers, with competitive pricing and tailored products. Multiple data sources enhance underwriting decisions, ensuring timely credit. PayNearby retailers provide human intelligence for seamless loan disbursals.”
Also read: Not SBI, Bank of Baroda, these public sector banks championed MSME loans in FY23
PayNearby enables services like cash withdrawal, remittance, Aadhaar banking, bill payment and recharges and more while Protean offers citizen services, e-governance solutions, system integration, business process re-engineering, data centre co-location, and IT consulting services for citizens, corporates and the government.