'SIDBI focusing on areas of niche financing'

SIDBI has now zeroed in on four or five areas of niche financing for MSME sector, including factoring, a top official said today.
Speaking at the inauguration of an Industrial Trade fair here, N K Maini, Deputy Managing Director, SIDBI, said the process was on for promoting factoring movement, which was yet to take off in the country, for some reason.
However, it has been largely resolved by the passage of Factoring Act two years ago and the Government has constituted a Factoring Guarantee Fund, he said.
This would be institutionalised within SIDBI shortly, Maini said, adding, "we would be able to resolve the receivables problem to a large extent through this initiative."

Stating that RBI has extended a support of Rs 5,000 crore to SIDBI for receivable financing last year--both direct and through banks and other institutions, he said "we are able to use the support within a short span of two months and as on date, we have covered over 10,000 MSMEs for their delayed receivables."
Risk capital was another area SIDBI was looking at, as it required at various stages of a unit, from the time one graduates and takes a call to becoming a entrpreneur and grow, he said.

In addition, Sidbi has, through the Credit Guarantee Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) created a culture of lending without collateral security, Maini said, adding, under this, finance was provided based on the strength of the project rather than collateral security.

The success of CGTMSE was vindicated by the fact that over 14 lakh units have been covered up to March 31, 2014 for a total loan coverage of Rs 70,000 crore, covering all States and districts.
In the field of Micro enterprises and micro finance, SIDBI is the foremost player and has in the last decade supported over 10,000 MFIs, to reach out to the poor of loans up to Rs 50,000, assisting over three crore people to create livelihood for themselves.
SIDBI's total funding since inception is about Rs 3.5 trillion and last year it disbursed Rs 52,000 crore to the MSME, covering over 12 lakh enterprises, Maini said.