Time for champions: Financing for MSMEs gets a boost

The budget proposed a three-pronged approach for India's 7.4 million micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

- Manas Pimpalkhare, Rituraj Baruah & Shayan Ghosh

This included a dedicated ₹10,000 crore SME Growth Fund to create future 'Champions', a top-up to the Self-Reliant India Fund with ₹2,000 crore to maintain micro enterprises' access to risk capital; and reforms to the Trade Receivables electronic Discounting System (TReDS) platform, an RBI-regulated platform for MSMEs to access financing. TReDS helps MSMEs secure financial assistance without any collateral security, based on the invoices/bills for supplies to large corporates.

The budget proposed to mandate TReDS as the transaction settlement platform for all purchases from MSMEs by CPSEs (state-run enterprises), serving as a benchmark for other corporates.

The Centre also proposed to introduce a credit guarantee support mechanism through CGTMSE—an MSME ministry scheme for credit guarantee support—for invoice discounting on TReDS.

FM Nirmala Sitharaman also proposed to link the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal with TReDS for sharing information with financiers about government purchases, encouraging cheaper and quicker financing.

Industry stakeholders said these measures assist MSMEs to secure financing, addressing a crucial gap in the ecosystem—access to credit.