IndiaMART Protects Buyer/Supplier Payments

Digital B2B commerce platform IndiaMART is making a new play for the SMEs that sell and buy on its platform by launching new services for those companies, the firm said Wednesday (Mar. 8).

IndiaMART will target the financial health and cash flow of those SMEs by helping to reduce payment risk for suppliers while ensuring that buyers get what they ordered.

“Bottlenecks like trust deficit and lack of credit continue to hold back the growth potential of our SMEs,” said IndiaMART founder and CEO Dinesh Agarwal in a statement. “Being at the convergence of eCommerce, payments and finance, we have a large plan to address these areas, and this is the first step under the umbrella of initiatives like escrow services, payment gateway, invoicing and receivables management and SME financing.“

“There are more than 50 million SMEs in India,“ he continued, “and our vision is to enable ease of doing business for them. With this buyer and seller protection program, we are taking our first step in that direction.“

IndiaMART had already been testing some of these services in the pilot phase, the company said. Since that launch in January of this year, the project has seen week-on-week growth of 100 percent, with more than 10,000 buyers and suppliers registering for these protection services.

The company also inked a partnership with ICICI Bank to provide escrow services for small businesses on the platform, reports added.

Last year IndiaMART invested in industry peer ProcMart, a move Agarwal said was a reflection of the “scope” of the B2B procurement space.