Sidbi on Tuesday said it has sanctioned financial assistance of Rs 650 crore to AU Small Finance Bank and Jana Small Finance Bank so as to reach out to small-sized NBFCs/MFIs who will in turn provide funding to small businesses and micro entrepreneurs.
An amount of Rs 530 crore has already been released to these SFBs, Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) said in a release.
The financial assistance has been extended out of the special liquidity facility (SLF) of Rs 16,000 crore sanctioned by the Reserve Bank of India to Sidbi to meet the challenges being faced by MSMEs due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the release said.
Speaking about the assistance being extended by way of double intermediation measure, Sidbi's Chairman & Managing Director Sivasubramanian Ramann said, “The move is expected to benefit more than 40 small-sized NBFCs / MFIs which will help in mitigating the hardships being faced by such NBFCs / MFIs in garnering resources for their businesses.”
In June last year, RBI had announced a special liquidity facility of Rs 16,000 crore to Sidbi.
This was aimed at meeting MSMEs' short and medium-term credit needs to kickstart the investment cycle with additional focus on smaller MSMEs and businesses including those in credit deficient and aspirational districts.
RBI had said the facility would be extended for onlending / refinancing through novel models and structures, including double intermediation, pooled bond/loan issuances.
The facility will be available at the prevailing policy repo rate for a period of up to one year, RBI had said.
Sidbi said the pandemic has adversely impacted the businesses of MSMEs leading to a slowdown in income generation activities of these small businesses and micro-enterprises.
This has further adversely affected the collections and liquidity position of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and micro finance institutions (MFIs).
The smaller NBFCs / MFIs, in particular, have always faced challenges in accessing adequate institutional funding and generally source their funds support from other larger and well-established non-banking companies / SFBs, the release said.
