Artfine, a specialist supply-chain financing firm which recently secured the NBFC factoring license from RBI through its group company Arth Padarth Factoring and Finance Pvt Ltd. has partnered with Receivables Exchange of India Ltd. (RXIL) to onboard on RXIL as a financier. The objective of the partnership is to finance invoice factoring for MSMEs and helping the MSMEs sell their receivables on RXIL’s TReDS platform. Artfine also intends to integrate their invoice discounting platform “ArtfineBilz” with RXIL to offer seamless customer experience, provide new products and increase its reach with the Corporates as well as MSMEs.

Artfine focuses on providing customized supply chain financing products for Corporates to benefit the MSMEs, which are supplying or buying from these corporates. The firm has the distinction of structuring the first dealer securitization in the country. These capital market instruments are rated by credit rating agencies so that they can be subscribed by all investors – HNI and Institutions. Founded by ex-bankers Arvind Rangarajan, Saini Rajgopal, and Shantanu Bairagi, Artfine has helped more than 800 SMEs and MSMEs; and has arranged and advised INR 1,000 crores as part of its financing portfolio.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Shantanu Bairagi, co-founder of Artfine said, “Supply chain finance is below 5% of entire banking systems’ assets outstanding and has immense growth potential. Our financial solutions are designed to bridge the gap in the industry and provide competitive rate financing to MSMEs. With our partnership with RXIL’s TReDS platform, we intend to become a go-to solution provider of supply chain finance for MSMEs, supporting them in unlocking requisite working capital without having to go through lengthy loan application processes.”

Started as a joint venture between Small Industries Development Bank of India and National Stock Exchange of India Limited, RXIL’s TReDS platform has completed five years of operations and has already crossed INR 20,000 crores invoice discounting milestone, has over 10,000+ MSMEs, 740+ buyers and close to 50 financiers on the platform.

Mr. Ketan Gaikwad, MD & CEO of Receivables Exchange of India Limited (RXIL) said, “Over the years, with the advent of technology backed with several government initiatives, the digital supply chain finance has presented itself as a viable solution for end-to-end process of financing and ensure timely provision of working capital to MSMEs. We are privileged to partner with Artfine and look forward to their valuable support in strengthening the MSME financing on the TReDS platform.”

“RXIL’s TReDS is an end-to-end digital platform, and we believe to expand and facilitate ease of doing business for all stakeholders including MSMEs, Corporates, Government entities, PSUs and Financiers in the coming years”, Ketan further added.

TReDS is a digital platform for facilitating the financing of trade receivables for MSMEs through multiple financiers. This gives MSMEs greater access to finance and puts greater discipline on corporates to pay their dues on time. RBI’s aim while setting up TReDS was to simplify money flow for MSMEs by transforming their trade receivables into liquid funds.