California
Facebook will offer loans to small businesses in India under a new initiative with online lending platform Indifi.
The California-based company in a statement said it has started its Small Business Loans Initiative in partnership with Indifi and will not receive any revenue through the partnership, it said.
The loans will be offered to firms that have advertised on Facebook’s family of apps, which includes Instagram and WhatsApp, for at least 180 days and will range from 500,000 Indian rupees to 5,000,000 Indian rupees.
The interest rate will be 17 percent to 20 percent per annum without collateral, the company said on its website. Indifi will also provide a 0.2 percent reduction on interest for businesses that are partly or fully owned by women.
“We are at the spear end of the digital transformation and we believe that the Small Business Loans Initiative can provide big impetus to early entrepreneurs to fuel their ideas and their appetite for taking risks,” said Ajit Mohan, Facebook managing director for India.
To be eligible for loans, the companies should have a presence in 82 Indian cities, it said.
Facebook is boosting its presence in India.—TLTP
