– Mr. Harshvardhan Lunia, founder & CEO, Lendingkart Technologies

“According to RBI data, microfinance companies’ loan book stood at Rs 3 lakh crore as of September 2022, increasing by 23 percent from last year. With the increase in demand for microfinance and digital lending companies, the budget should provide due consideration to boost liquidity support to the NBFCs as well as encourage frameworks like co-lending, which will greatly boost the reach of financial institutions and progress in the financial inclusion imperative. While the Reserve Bank of India has set the regulatory ball rolling for innovations like UPI and Account Aggregator, the Budget can encourage the uptake of these technologies in the financial sector through partnerships with digital service providers either by direct funding or tax incentives.

For the MSME sector that was adversely impacted by the pandemic, it would be helpful for the Government to extend the credit guarantee scheme, which was slated to end in March of this year, for another 3 years. To widen the reach of scheme’s benefit, the Government should increase the maximum loan amount from 10 lacs to 25 lacs under CGFMU scheme. This is a critical sector for job creation and income distribution, and it is expected that the government will focus on significantly improving the cost of doing business here.”