The nation’s largest moneylender State Bank of India (SBI) has joined together with India’s top packaged consumer merchandise company Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) to offer advanced digital payment and financing solutions for small storekeepers and owners and wholesalers or distributors of the company’s products. SBI will issue a paperless instant overdraft facility to retailers to empower payments to merchants and distributors. It will likewise give UPI-based solutions for HUL’s retailers to help and assist with credit only payments. The move that was reported mutually by HUL and SBI will start as a pilot beginning in the urban areas and cities of Bengaluru and Mumbai.
HUL has a widely dispersed network in India and connects to millions of outlets selling brands, for example, Dove, Kissan, Lux cleansers, Rin detergent, and so on. The consumer products organization said in an announcement that under this partnership, the bank will offer an instant paperless overdraft facility of up to Rs. 50,000 to retailers for their billings with merchants and vendors as well as financing facility to HUL’s wholesalers and distributors. HUL said in its announcement that to guarantee the customers get the alternative of digital payments in smaller areas towns also, the bank will introduce SBI Point of Sale machines at different HUL contact focuses across the nation. Furthermore, SBI will give UPI based answers for HUL retailers for instant cashless payments to their sellers from HUL’s retailer application “Shikhar”.
The organization said that the association will enable the adoption of digital payments among HUL retailers, small business enterprises in semi metropolitan and rural regions. Rajnish Kumar, Chairman, SBI stated that SBI has consistently been pursuing serving the last mile clients and similar is the situation with HUL which takes into account its clients in the remotest part of the nation. SBI has a chance to use its solid geographic presence and vital strategic digital solutions for simplifying the monetary necessities of HUL’s clients, retailers, vendors, and employees.
Digitizing India’s overall trade and exchange ecosystem is presently applicable particularly as COVID-19 is pushing retailers and customers to accomplish more transactions through the web. India’s FMCG market is to a great extent dependent on the nation’s overall trade or small mom pop stores for sales.
Sanjiv Mehta, Chairman & Managing Director, HUL mentioned that there are a couple of limitations when we take a look at the ecosystems. One is, they have generally been working in an environment that is casual. The second significant bit is because they work in a casual (environment), they generally have a limitation of not approaching credit. Also, third and significant limitations, there is a hesitance to embrace the innovation and technology. He further added that the collaboration tackles a portion of the significant requirements that retailers and the small business people are facing in the nation today.
