MSME Finance Services

MSME is also known as Micro Small and Medium Enterprise. According to MSME development act of 2006, in India a micro enterprise or business where the investment in plant and machinery does not exceed more than 25 lakh rupees can render services. A small enterprise is an enterprise in which the investment in plant and machinery is more than 25 lakh but does not exceed 5 crore rupees. A medium enterprise is an enterprise where the investment in plant and machinery is more than 5 crore rupees but does not exceed more than 10 crore rupees.

MSME finance has many responsibilities and functions and one of its responsibilities is to cater to the funding requirements of micro, small and medium companies and enterprises. It is also responsible for developing products to help the MSME borrowers and clients in different segments. The products developed by MSME finance caters to the needs of all types of stakeholders (dealers, manufacturers and vendors).

The MSME finance sector faces competitive environment due to liberalization of the investment regime during the 1990s, favoring foreign direct investment (FDI) and domestic economic reforms. Under the current pattern of neo-liberalism, labor market rigidity is considered as a barrier to the overall growth of the economy and the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, forcing its member-countries to significantly scale down quantitative and non-quantitative restrictions on imports is also considered as a barrier. The three historical models of corporate governance in India are – the business house model that emerged after Independence, the managing agency model in the colonial period and the Anglo-American model which has recently been adopted.

The main plan of the micro finance program is to work alongside with SIDBI by working and making a contribution in the security deposits which is needed from micro financial institutions or NGOs working as MFIs in order to obtain regular loans from SIDBI. The PRF (portfolio risk fund) is a fund which is provided by the government of India to SIDBI to help it in its micro finance programs. the PRF fund is used to meet the cost of the security deposit of loans lend out by microfinance institutions or NGOs so that they can meet the cost of the credit that they lose as a result of interest loss. SIDBI takes a fixed deposit amount which is equals to 10% of the loaned amount. One fourth of the fixed amount deposited is also given to the micro finance institutions to make up for their security deposit.