ICICI Bank said that it has entered into a partnership with Amazon India to offer individual sellers and small businesses registered on the latter’s online marketplace with InstaOD, an overdraft (OD) facility of up to INR 25 lakhs.

The overdraft facility will be delivered instantaneously and digitally, said the Indian private banking group.

The partnership between ICICI Bank and Amazon India, which is said to be driven by API integration, is said to enable sellers to get an overdraft from the bank in a fully digital manner, starting from application to its sanction to disbursement.

Vikas Bansal — Director of 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.”

According to ICICI Bank, customers of other banks can also avail the InstaOD facility if they are registered sellers at amazon.in.

By tapping advanced data analytics, ICICI Bank is said to have developed the digital overdraft facility that helps in instantly assessing the credit worthiness of sellers based on their financial profile, which includes Credit Bureau scores.

ICICI Bank said that the new credit assessment method gives considerable convenience to the sellers as it eliminates the paper-intensive bank statements or income tax returns for evaluating credit worthiness.

Furthermore, InstaOD empowers individual sellers and small businesses who are ‘new-to-credit’ and ‘existing MSME borrowers’ to unlock the value of their digital transactions, while accessing instant credit.

ICICI Bank said that sellers having current account with it can immediately begin using the overdraft facility to address their working capital needs. Customers of other banks, on the other hand, can avail InstaOD by opening a current account with the bank digitally.

Pankaj Gadgil — ICICI Bank Head of Self Employed Segment, SME & Merchant Ecosystem, said: “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.”

Earlier this month, ICICI Bank announced that its savings account customers can instantly pay and manage the dues of their credit cards of any bank using the bank’s iMobile Pay app.

  Amazon, Amazon India, Amazon Pay, Banking industry news, ICICI Bank, India, Pankaj Gadgil, Vikas Bansal