ICICI Bank & Amazon India Partner To Offer Instant Overdraft (OD) Facility To Sellers

ICICI Bank declared yesterday that it has collaborated with Amazon India to provide prompt and digital overdraft (OD) facility up to Rs 25 lakh to individual sellers and small companies registered on the e-commerce company's online marketplace, www.amazon.in. The alliance, which is powered by API integration, allows sellers to obtain an OD from the Bank in a fully digital procedure i.e. from application to sanction to payout. Customers of other banks can use ICICI Bank's OD facility if they are registered as sellers on Amazon.in.

The bank on the launch has said that it has developed this new facility that functions on the back of an industry-first scorecard to instantly evaluate credit worthiness of sellers based on their financial profile including Credit Bureau scores. Sellers who have an ICICI Bank current account can use the OD to satisfy their working capital needs right away. Customers from other banks can get the OD by opening a digital current account with the bank.

"ICICI Bank has always believed that access to timely credit and ease of doing business are key parameters for the growth of the MSME businesses. In line with this, we are pleased to launch the OD facility for sellers registered on amazon.in instantly and digitally. The partnership stands to enable sellers to avail instant overdraft up to Rs. 25 lakh in a completely digital manner. They can start using the OD amount immediately to meet their working capital requirements. We have specially curated a new way of assessing credit worthiness of the sellers on the basis of their Credit Bureau score as well as their transaction history on amazon.in. This new and improved process will help the sellers, who may otherwise not get access to adequate credit when assessed in the traditional way of using only balance sheets, bank statements and tax returns. We believe that this new proposition resonates our effort in developing path breaking innovations for MSME customers and will empower them with new avenues of business expansion, Pankaj Gadgil, Head- Self Employed Segment, SME & Merchant Ecosystem, ICICI Bank acknowledged.

Vikas Bansal, Director - Amazon Pay India said, "We are prioritizing our efforts to help sellers on amazon.in bounce back from the disruption owing to COVID-19. Our mission is to enable easy and trusted access to credit for sellers with transparent policies and at low costs. Our partnership with ICICI Bank will provide sellers across India with an OD facility instantly and digitally at affordable rates to meet all their current and future requirements."

Below are the benefits of 'InstaOD' for amazon.in sellers:

According to the official release of the bank, here are some benefits that sellers can experience by opting "InstaOD" facility of the bank:

Online loan application: Sellers registered on amazon.in can apply for the OD instantly online through amazon.in in a completely digital and paperless manner.

Easy process: The Bank evaluates sellers instantly on the basis of their Credit Bureau score and their transaction history on amazon.in, making the loan approval process easy and quick. This is a marked improvement over the typical process which demands sellers to go through the tedious paper-intensive process of submitting income tax returns, bank statements and GST returns.

Instant sanction and disbursal: The approved OD amount is instantly sanctioned and disbursed into the seller's current account.

Pay for what you use: Sellers only need to pay interest on the amount of OD utilised by them.

Auto-renewal facility: The OD is renewable on an annual basis, depending on the repayment track records of the seller.

Steps for the sellers to avail the 'InstaOD'

View offer: Eligible sellers can find the ICICI Bank offer on their account of Amazon Seller Central, online portal for sellers registered on amazon.in.

Click on banner: The seller is redirected to ICICI Bank's 'InstaOD' platform upon clicking on the banner on Seller Central.

Fill details: The seller needs to login and fill in the digital application form.

Confirm to sanction amount: Upon confirmation of the amount from the seller, the OD is instantly sanctioned. If the seller already has a current account with ICICI Bank, then the seller can immediately start using the OD.

Account opening for new-to-bank seller: Sellers new to ICICI Bank, will be redirected for instant opening of current account and KYC validation.

Sellers registered on amazon.in can avail the 'InstaOD' facility through Amazon Seller Central or by clicking on the following link: https://sellercentral.amazon.in/lending/ph/offers.

Organisations and Partners can get in touch with the Bank for API integrations through https://www.icicibank.com/business-banking/finance/insta-overdraft.page.