Technology for MSMEs: Private lender ICICI Bank on Wednesday said it has made the MSME-focused digital banking app InstaBIZ interoperable to enable merchants to link their accounts with other banks to the platform. Owners of grocery shops, supermarkets, restaurants, stationery stores and pharmacies and professionals like doctors and lawyers can create their UPI ID and QR code on the app to accept payments from customers. The bank said merchants can also digitally apply for a Point of Sale (POS) device and a voice messaging device that confirms the receipt of the payments. ICICI Bank had launched the InstaBIZ app in July 2019 to allow MSMEs to access banking products and services through the app or website.

“A large part of this (MSME) segment consists of retail merchants. It is our endeavour to support merchants—around two crores across the country– by offering them solutions that make their business easy,” said Anup Bagchi, Executive Director, ICICI Bank in a statement.

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The interoperability is backed by the online Know Your Customer (KYC) process as merchants do not need to visit a branch nor upload any document, the bank said. The initiative leverages ICIC Bank’s APIs that digitally validate permanent account number or Aadhaar number which is required for verification of KYC. “We believe that this new and unique digital offering resonates with merchants across the country, as it frees up their bandwidth to a large extent, which they can devote to grow their main business,” added Bagchi. 

InstaBIZ offers MSMEs overdraft facility of up to Rs 15 lakh, bulk collection and payments of funds through digital modes, automatic bank reconciliation and also undertake largely all of the export-import transactions like inward and outward remittances among others.

ICICI Bank had reported growth of its SME loan portfolio by 34.2 per cent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 36,353 crore and 9.7 per cent quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) in its Q3 results in January. The growth came on the back of InstaBIZ and other digital efforts by the bank such as Merchant Stack, Trade Online and e-signing of disbursement documents through EasySign. The average ticket size of the business loan by the bank was around Rs 1-1.5 crore.