Srei Infra-UCO Bank inks JV to fund construction equipment

A wholly-owned subsidiary of Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited (Srei) and UCO Bank, a premier public sector bank, have announced a strategic alliance to fiancé the purchase of construction and mining, farm and medical equipment under a co-lending arrangement. iQuippo, a Kanoria Foundation initiative, will facilitate sourcing of loans under the joint venture program. The partnership will allow Srei Equipment and UCO Bank to collaborate, co-operate and widen their respective markets and customer base. The alliance will also allow both lenders to leverage each other's customers and cross-sell their products. The lenders will use the iQuippo platform, a unique digital market place with more than 90,000 registered users, for loan origination and sourcing of prospective borrowers and electronic auction of equipment as and when required.

Commenting on the partnership, Sunil Kanoria, Vice Chairman, Srei, said, "UCO Bank's strong track record and wide reach, especially in eastern India, makes us confident about the success of this program. The combined strength of Srei Equipment, UCO Bank and iQuippo will provide the necessary boost to demand for infrastructure equipment and create a win-win situation for all the partners and customers. The strategic alliance will also help in fulfilling the government's vision of making credit available to MSMEs and retail customers in the infrastructure space at an affordable cost."

Kumar Goel, MD & CEO, UCO Bank, said that his bank will play a key role in increasing funding to MSMEs through this partnership which will boost credit availability to larger spectrum of MSMEs, which contribute significantly to the GDP and generate large scale employment. The pan India reach of UCO Bank leveraged with Srei's expertise in equipment financing will give easy access to low cost of funds to MSMEs, especially in hard-to-reach markets in tier II and III cities. This will boost the Bank's lending profile in the priority sector. While we increase the lending, we would also be ensuring quality credit underwriting through this model."

Ajay Vyas, Executive Director, UCO Bank, commented, "RBI's initiative of co-origination is beneficial to all the stakeholders. Fresh credit flow will help the NBFCs and catalyze the growth of MSME sector, which is the backbone of our economy. The digitized co-lending process through iQuippo portal will facilitate speedy disbursal of credit to MSMEs and help us increase our customer base at a lower cost." CEO, iQuippo, Anant Raj Kanoria, CEO, iQuippo, said that iQuippo's state-of-the art platform, designed together with IBM, is India's first platform to digitize the co-lending process. "We are excited to add UCO Bank to our growing list of financial service partners. We will assist the bank in expanding its reach into the MSME space and especially in the construction and mining equipment sector."