By Ashok Kadsur, Founder, SignDesk
Banks and NBFCs in India are experiencing a sudden downturn in business due to the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic, with over 80% of companies reporting a decreased cash flow and the lowest reported economic growth rate in six years, according to FICCI.
Why are financial organizations feeling the pinch?
Banks and NBFCs rely heavily on the maintenance of a steady cash cycle to keep their business afloat, and loans are a crucial part of this cycle. Loan processes are now facing considerable disruptions in India. There are two reasons:
First, both individuals and organizations have not been taking loans due to the health risks involved in the physical nature of the onboarding and loan disbursement process.
Second, businesses are trying to stay put and weather the storm by reducing their financial activities, such as taking loans.
Addressing these two reasons will go a long way in returning the activities of banks and NBFCs to normalcy post the COVID-19 pandemic. But how are they being treated?
How digitized loans are helping fix the problems?
Digitizing the loan disbursement process is a quick and easy solution to this two-pronged problem, as it reduces the health risks of obtaining loans to zero. It is because no physical contact with other individuals is involved in the digitized loan process.
Additionally, the low cost of onboarding and the reduced turnaround time of digitized loans lowers the financial burden of loan disbursement on banks and NBFCs, allowing them to offer mortgages at lower rates to businesses that are reluctant to obtain loans due to the financial implications.
Therefore, by adopting end-to-end digitizing of the loan disbursement process, banks and NBFCs are beginning to get their businesses back on track while ensuring profitability.
End-to-end loan digitization
Start-ups are already offering end-to-end loan digitization solutions to banks and NBFCs. Chief among these start-ups is SignDesk, which provides a catalog of digital onboarding and documentation solutions to digitize loans.
SignDesk’s Video KYC product, scan.it, is used to digitally onboard customers. Following this, a loan agreement is ratified digitally through the online payment of stamp duty, via stamp.it. The loan agreement is then signed digitally and executed using ink.it, an e-signature workflow solution. Finally, payments on the loan are automated with link.it, an eMandate workflow solution.
In this way, the entire process can be completely digitized, thus reducing the risks of obtaining loans and injecting some much-needed stimulus into the financial ecosystem.
(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article on Coronavirus (COVID19) are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of IBS Intelligence.)
